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Vietnam Generation Volume 4 Number 3 Viet Nam Generation, Volume 4, Number Article 1 3-4

8-1992 Viet Nam Generation, Volume 4, Number 3-4

Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/vietnamgeneration Part of the American Studies Commons

Recommended Citation (1992) "Viet Nam Generation, Volume 4, Number 3-4," Generation: Vol. 4 : No. 3 , Article 1. Available at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/vietnamgeneration/vol4/iss3/1

This Complete Volume is brought to you for free and open access by La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vietnam Generation by an authorized editor of La Salle University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Journal of Recent History and Contemporary Issues

V olu m e A N um ber 3-4 Contents

In This Issue...... 2 A Peo pIe Not Stronq: V ietnamese Imaqes of The iNdochiNA War, by ALan FarreII...... 62 Publishers S tatem en t...... 4 SEMiOTic ANd AqoNisTic Reason iN ThivtcNh Chey, DatecI Notices...... 8 by PhlllipE Hunt...... 65

A nnouncements, N o tices, & Re p o r t s ...... 10 PoETRy by LeNARd D. M o o r e ...... 77

ChiN Bo Lam M uo (NiNE Down MAk.ES Ten) In The Belly of tIie B east: MIAs ANd tIte Body by PhAM Thi HoAi...... 57 PoliTic, by MARiA Da m o n ...... 78

The Last VC, by WAyNE KarUn ...... 41 WhAT Do W e Want? by WilliAM M. KiN q...... 85

ViET Nam ATter The 7Th Party CoNqRess, Alice ANd JiMMy M ac, by Dan D uffy...... 45 by TAckshi M io...... 85

A CowARd foR O ne MInute, Why My DAuqhTER Won't G row iN PeRkAsie, by STEpheN T. BANko, III...... 47 by W.D. EhRhART...... 89

Rock S tar, by JiM M orrIson...... 50 Poetry by DAvid CoNNolly...... 91

ViET Nam NIrvana: The NiNE S teps "Home is WIiere Y ou Diq It " (ObseRVATiONS on by S ean CoNNolly...... 55 Life at tIie Khe SANh CoMbAT B ase), by Peter BrusIt ...... 94 PoETRy by ReNNy ChRiSTophER...... 60 Doves iN a HAwk's Nest: ViET Na m ANd The PoETRy by Horace C oIem an...... 60 A merican Peace M ovement, 1965-75, by CItarIes Ho w Ie t t ...... 98

Summer-FaU, 1992 VoIume 4 NuMbcR 5-4

V iet Na m G eneration, Inc.

ViCE-PRESidENT PRESidENT SECRETARY, TREASURER H erman Beavers K ali T al Cynthia J. F uchs EdiTORs: Dan Duffy, K ali T al „ , _ , Book Review EdiTOR: Dan Scripture CoNTRiburiNq EdiTORs R enny Christopher, David DeR ose, A lan Farrell, Cynthia J. F uchs, W illiam M. K ing, Steve P otts, Bill Shields, T ony W illiams, David W illson

AdvisoRy BoARd RUTH ROSEN LYDIA FISH NANCY a n is f ie l d MICHAEL KLEIN UC Davis St. Michael's College Buffalo State College University of Ulster WILLIAM J. SEARLE DAVID HUNT JOHN BAKY GABRIEL KOLKO Eastern Illinois University La Salle Unversity William Joiner Center York University JAMES C. SCOTT University of Massachusetts KEVIN BOWEN DAVID MARR William Joiner Center . PHILIP JASON Australian National University ROBERT SLABEY University of Massachusetts US Naval Academy JOHN CLARK PRATT University of Noire Dame JEAN BETHKE ELSHTAIN BEN KIERNAN Colorado State University BARBARA TISCHLER Vanderbilt University Yale University TOM RIDDELL Columbia University RICHARD FALK WILLIAM M. KING Smith College CHRISTINE PELZER WHITE Princeton University University of Colorado University of

e d it o r ia l correspondence a n d in q u ir ie s t o D a n D u f f y , 18 C e n t e r R d ., W o o d b r id g e , CT 06525; 203/432-3432. E d it o r ia l o r b u s in e s s correspondence t o K a li T a l , Viet nam Generation, 2921 T e r r a c e D r iv e , C h e v y C h a s e , MD 20815; 301/608-0622; f a x : 301/608-0761. S ubscriptions: $40/ year individuals; $75/ year institutional.

ISSN: 1042-7597 S u m m e r -Fa U, 1992 ViET Na m G eneration V o Iu m e 4 Nu m [>CR 5-4

ViET Nam War REfouqkr: Kent State, 1977, by MiRiAM H. JAcksoN...... 110 In T his Issue

Poetry by James ScofiEld...... 119 Here’s how it works. There are four sections: Announcements, Notices and Reports; Features; Teaching; and Book Reviews. We place information with States of Shock, by DAvid J. DeRo se ...... 119 date deadlines at the front of the issue. Announcements, Notices, and Reports does not Ziplocksd, by CyNThiA J. Fuchs...... 122 have a table of contents. Many of the best articles in the issue are there, but you have to go in and get them. There ThE MARqiNs of ThE ViET Nam War, is an explanation of the guy with a revolver on the cover, by FRtdtRic PaIIe z ...... 125 a report on AIDS in Viet Nam, a discussion of why Scarlet, the sequel to Gone with the Wind, is a ViET Nam War STudiEs: A C uLturaL M aterIaUst bestseller in Ha Noi, and a perceptive and insightful AppROAch, by ToNy W illiAMS...... 126 discussion of the 25th Anniversary Commemoration o f Vietnam Veterans Against the War written by Jack Mallory, as well as 22 other items you're not going to read PoETRy by Rod M cQ u eary...... 152 about anyplace else. In this issue, the Announcements section has grown from my private soapbox to a regular TEAch Your CUldREN WeII: RAisiNq ThE Next Hyde Park full of articulate people with something to say GENERATiON ON ThE ViET NAM WAR, about the U.S. and Viet Nam and . by Steve Po t t s ...... 154 Articles in the Featuresand Teaching sections and the Book Reviews are listed in the table of contents. Book RsviEws Features starts with Chin Bo Lam Muoi (Nine Down Makes Ten), a story by Pham Thi Hoai, a leading writer from Ha Noi. She was bom in 1960. Her narrator describes Michael Steven Smith, Notebook o f a Sixties Lawyer, An nine men she has been with, leaving the reader with a Unrepentant Memoir sense of ten Viets who are substantially more vivid and ReviEWEd by BARbARA TischlER...... 158 complex than the characters who people my daily life. The translator, Peter Zinoman, contributed Nguyen HuyTiep’s Allan Gurganus, Oldest Living Confederate VangLua (Fired Gold) to issue 4:1-2. By the kindness of Widow Tells A ll Keith Taylor, that translation has been used by 35 college John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany teachers this summer at Ann Arbor, in the intensive REviEWEd by R e n n y ChRiSTophER...... 159 course on Asian Literature in Translation. We will bring as much of Zinoman’s work to you as we can. Next come four more narratives. Wayne Karlin’s James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain, Heaven's Prisoners, The Last VC evokes a young Afro-Viet American woman, Black Cherry Blues, A Morning for Flamingos followed by Alice and Jimmy Mac, a chapter from my Charles Durden, The Fifth Law o f Hawkins story. Spoils. Alice was the narrator's wife, and Jimmy Gustav Hasford, A Gypsy Good Time was his friend. A Coward fo r One Minute, by Stephen Sharyn McCrumb, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-0 Banko III, tells the story of an unfortunate accident on Carsten Stroud, Sniper's Moon recon. Jim Morrison's Rock Star explains what it felt like REviEWEd by KaLi TaL...... 140 to carry the name of The Doors' lead singer to the war in Viet Nam. Sean Connolly closes this run of fiction with a REMF tale, Viet Nam Nirvana: The Nine Steps. Then there is a poem from Renny Christopher about knowing soldiers and fighting against men, and a collection of five poems by Horace Coleman—whose book of verse we will publish next year. Horace recently suffered a stroke and is slowly but steadily recovering. We wish him a speedy journey to good health. Literary criticism comes next. Contributing Editor Alan Farrell discusses ways that the French and the Viets have used insect imagery to describe Viet people. A People Not Strong first appeared as a presentation at the 1992 Popular Culture Association conference in Louisville, KY. Phillipe Hunt's essay Semiotic and Agonistic Reason in Thmenh Chey was written after Cambodian friends invited Hunt to address them in Phnom Penh on Cambodian literature. Thmenh Chey is a centerpiece of Cambodian culture, in the literate and oral traditions.

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Hunt is the first to point out that he does not even speak Shock. Shepard wrote the play to denounce Desert Khmer. When I obtain literary criticism from Cambodians, Storm. The New York critics panned him for being stuck I'll publish it. Hunt’s essay is an especially strong piece, on the war on Viet Nam. In The Margins of the Viet Nam in the best skeptical strain of his teacher Paul De Man. War Frederic Pallez takes a cultural theorist's perspective Then comes poetry from Lenard Moore, an Army veteran on the task of studying the Viet Nam War. After Williams' born in 1958, who writes of his career Marine father essay, the Featuresend with poems from Rod McQueary, leaving for Viet Nam, and coming back. who seems to have achieved some peace of mind. Maria Damon leads off a section of general comment Steve Potts, new on our staff, inaugurates his with In The Belly o f the Beast, a consideration of the Teaching section with Teach Your Children Well: U.S. obsession with the physical remains of servicemen. Raising the Next Generation on the . The She illuminates The King’s Two Bodies, a classic of essay offers insights and detailed information from an medieval studies, as a Cold War text. William M. King’s experienced college instructor, on resources for teaching What Do We Want discusses Black Power. King writes junior high and secondary level classes on the war. lucidly about power, a topic that usually prompts Book Review Editor Dan Scripture presents Barbara mystification, from those who don’t have it as well as from Tischler on Michael Steven Smith's Notebook of a those who do. Tadoshi Mio, from Daito Bunka University, Sixties Lawyer, An Unrepentant Memoir and Selected discusses Viet Nam After The 7th Party Congress. It is Writings, and our fiction columnist Renny Christopher a thrill to publish an East Asian expert on contemporary on two novels infused by the war—Allan Gurganus' Viet Nam. We hope to hear more from Professor Mio and Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and John his colleagues. The “comment’’ section ends with our Irving's Prayerfor Owen Meany.. Kali Tal rounds out the spiritual leader, W.D. Ehrhart, on Why My Daughter issue with a discussion of detective fiction involving Won’t Grow Up inPerkasie. A well-meaning gladhander veterans. in Ehrhart’s hometown noticed that the poet had published That's the issue. It was a lot easier to put together a book of essays, and invited him to speak to the local than my first fourteen-page newsletter, because now I Rotary. None of them had read the book. The speaking know what I'm doing, and because so many of you have engagement led to a lively exchange of views between the learned what we're trying to accomplish with Viet Nam poet and the people who sent him to war. After Ehrhart’s Generation, Inc. That's good because I will be turning a essay is a substantial collection of poems from David great deal of my attention to my new job at the Yale Connolly. The first poem sounds like Rudyard Kipling's Council on Southeast Studies as Executive Editor of “Tommy" after an EST seminar. The last one addresses their journal Viet Nam Forum and the Lac Viet the PAVN vet Nguyen Ngoc Hung, with an image drawn monograph series. Nguyen Huynh Sanh Thong, the from the end of Kieu. The middle poems are a textbook of founder of the prizewinning publications, has devoted infantry attitude. We'll be publishing a book of David's himself to assembling the insights of his career into verse next year. Kali and I wish to congratulate our friend several books on world culture. He will remain as on his recent marriage. Consulting Editor to the series but I'll be making things Next we have history. Actually, we don't publish happen. anything that doesn’t approach the past with arguments Viet Nam Forum and Lac Viet grew out of the shaped by evidence, but don't get me started. Peter Brush Southeast Asia Refugee Project at Yale, to focus attention leadsoffwith "Home is Where You Dig It": Observations on the written record of the Viets in diaspora. Thong's on Life at the Khe Sanh Combat Base, in which he journal and book series lent the prestige of a famous argues for the right of millions of small, furry, fanged Western university to the efforts of refugee literati and to creatures to take their proper place in history. We extreme dissidents within Viet Nam. The Forum also gave introduce here, to illustrate Brush's text, the work of a home to a generation of Western scholars after 1975. artist Dana Kaufman. Doves in a Hawk's Nest: Viet Most importantly, the journal showcased Thong's own Nam and the American 1965-75, translations ofViet poetry and his groundbreaking articles provides both narrative and analysis on an essential on the basis of Vietnamese culture in folk tradition. topic. Especially valuable is the foregrounding of religious I hope to continue serving the established and ethnic groups as forces in the anti-war movement. communities of the Yale publications and to add to them. Miriam Jackson’s Viet Nam War Refought: Kent State, For the first issue of the new VietNam Forum. I am trying 1977 documents a public struggle over the meaning of to put together a collection that shows that we are the past. Two poems from a welcome new contributor, interested in perspectives from refugees, second James Scofield, round off this section. generation overseas Viets, established Western scholars, Features concludes with a collection of Criticism, or emerging Western scholars and intellectuals now active Cultural Studies, or well... just go ahead and read Tony in HaNoiandSaiGon. I like variety. I want authors from Williams'final essay, VietNam War Studies: A Cultural Orange Country, Melbourne, , , and Materialist Approach. He rounds up the recent works Tokyo. Ben Kiernan is closely associated with the new of Auster and Quart, Rowe and Berg, Gilman and Smith, project, so we hope to gather outstanding work on and and Phillip Beidler, calling on the reader to maintain an from Cambodia as well as Viet Nam. We would like to oppositional stance against the lies that surround state- publish on too. We would even call the journal sponsored violence. Preceding Williams' essay, drama Indochina Forum if the "I "-word wasn't such a loaded editor David DeRose writes on Sam Shepard's States of term. We hope that Thong's continued interest in the folk S u m m e r -Fail, 1992 V iet Na m G eneration V o Lu m e 4 NuMbER 5-4 culture of Viet Nam will attract manuscripts on the many Here's where your money goes.... Printing 1000 "ethnic minorities" of, shall we say, "mainland Southeast copies of a 144-page issue costs about $2200. Shipping Asia." His anti-Confucian stance brought articles from to us costs about $350. Mailing the journals out to you Women's Studies into past issues, a presence we both folks (plus about 200 reviewers, authors, board members, hope to expand. etc.) costs about $600. Printing 1000 copies of a book like If you trip over anyone who can supply smart, Asa Baber's Land of a Million Elephants or Leroy passionate writing from one of the above-mentioned Quintana’s Interrogations costs about $3000. We'd like points of view, on any topic, in any manner of speaking, to do four journal issues and four books a year. That from personal narrative to fiction to poetry to literary comes out to somewhere around $30,000. I failed “Math criticism to history to bean-counting demography, please Without Anxiety" twice in college, but even I can tell what put him or her in touch. Please don't tell anyone who those numbers mean. Those numbers mean that we knows how to wire a car bomb. If you want to subscribe print fewer books and journal issues, and that 1 continue or contribute to Viet Nam Forum, send me a note at the to spend my own money to Viet Nam Generation Yale Council on Southeast Asia Studies, Box 13A Yale going while I drive around my 1981 Datsun 4x4 pickup Station. New Haven, CT 06520. If Viet Nam Forum which needs a new clutch. I don’t mind doing this, but sounds like a good idea, you should also subscribe to the I have to confess that there are limits to the amount of outstanding new journals Horizons: Vietnamese money I can come up with to meet our costs. Thought and Experience (45 South Park Victoria, Suite Viet Nam Generation is something really special. 350, Milipitas, CA 95035; quarterly; $12/year) and As far as I know, it's the first academic journal to be Journal of (GPO Box 2918DD, started by a graduate student, independent of a university Melbourne, Victoria 3001, ). or a professional organization, and supported entirely by —Dan Duffy, Viet Nam Generation subscriptions and individual donations. It’s survived four years in a very tough market. It's published some of the best scholarship in its field. A lot of people read it cover to cover. I’ve run into graduate students at conferences who are writing dissertations related to the Viet Nam war, and who have said to me that Viet Nam Generationwas an invaluable resource, that the articles P ublisher's Statement and bibliographies we publish have contributed a great deal to their work. More than anything, I think we've This Is R EAlly Im p o r t a n t ! managed to bring a whole community of scholars together, to introduce new writers to that community, to put people Just as I was resigning myself to digging deep into my in touch with each other. I've really enjoyed watching quickly emptying pockets once again in order to pay the Viet Nam Generation grow and change, and I've been printer’s bill for this issue of Viet Nam Generation. I delighted to be able to delegate authority to people like received a call from the Santa Monica College Bookstore. Dan Duffy and Dan Scripture, to step back and let them They wanted to order 100 copies of Volume 1, Number 2, take over many of the editorial responsibilities of the GI Resistance: Soldiers and Veterans Against the journal while I concentrated on the business end of War, edited by Harry Haines. That single $1000 order things. The 1993 Sixties Generations conference is pays for half of the printing costs for the issue which you tremendously exciting. But I have to warn you. None of now hold in your hands. this is sustainable without more funding. I hate to keep harping on money matters, but I think So I am asking all of you to think hard about what that you all should understand exactly how this works. you can do to help us out. A few o f you might have We have about one hundred regular institutional disposable income. Send us a check. We're a 501(c)3, subscribers. They pay us $75 a year. That means we can so your donation is tax deductible. Many of you teach count on $7500 a year, firm money. We have about 150 college courses. Make an effort to use some of our individual subscribers, but that isn't firm. Individual excellent anthologies as course textbooks. All of you subscribers don't pay up at the beginning of the year. should browbeat your institutions into becoming They send in their money when they remember, or when subscribers if they are not already. All of you should be they realize they haven't been getting theirjoumal issues, telling your friends and colleagues that they really need or when I call them up and bug them. Individual to subscribe to Viet Nam Generation. Buy gift subscribers pay $40 ayear, and we can count on between subscriptions for your local Veteran’s Outreach Center $4000 and $6000 from this source. We sell individual or hospital. If you are a whiz at grant writing, or you issues of books, and some of our publications are used as know people at granting agencies, get in touch with us. classroom texts. This can bring in as much as $5000 a Dan and I publish and edit Viet Nam Generation year, but it comes in erratically and can't be counted on. because we think it's important work. Keeping Viet Nam A very few people send us donations. This year we've Generation alive has to be a communal effort. We can't received slightly less than $1000 in gifts. If everything do it without you. goes right, we can count on about $17,500 a year. Of course, everything does not go right, and we usually gross around $15,000.

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ENTERiNq t He Tw en t y -F irst C entury center. Do not be intimidated by all the people in there who look like they know what they are doing—soon you I admit it. I am a techno-fetishist. And it's a good thing will look like that, too. Although the stereotypical for all of you that I am, because it would be impossible for computer "techie" is both unkempt and lacking in social me to produce Viet Nam Generation if I didn't use the skills, I've found that the real item is almost universally latest in desktop publishing technology. 1 spend a lot of personable and kind. They want to assist you; it's their time in front of glowing blue screens. Often it is solitary job. Tell them that you want the account specifically to work, but it doesn't have to be. To my enormous surprise. get onto a Bitnet list, and they will ask you, "Which list?" I've found that I can gain access to a whole community of and set you up. folks interested in the Viet Nam war through my computer. Ifyou are not affiliated with an educational institution, I've discovered the universe of e-mail, and my life will or your school does not have Bitnet or Internet access, do never be the same. not despair. There are a number of commercial vendors I live with a computer scientist. Ifyou are acquainted who will sell you access to the electronic mail system for with computer scientists, you know that they are a moderate price. The most popular of these vendors is connected to their terminals by a cord which plugs into CompuServe, though there are a number of others their navel, and that ifyou disconnect them for any length including MCI Mail. Well, and PeaceNet. The latter is run of time they first grow weak, and then sick, and then they by the Institute for Global Communications, which is die. It's an addiction. Personally, 1 had never felt like that located in (415/923-0900). Most of these about my computer. 1 thought it was because I was large commercial vendors allow you to access your e-mail morally superior, but I found out that it was because I with a local phone call from any city in the country. just wasn't using it properly. [Right before we went to press I discovered this About two years ago Lydia Fish, Viet Nam announcement in MacWorld: "InterCon's (703/709- Generation Advisory Board member, folklorist and Viet 9890) WorldLink provides software and dialup access Nam war scholar, mentioned to me that she was interested privileges to the Internet. An E-mail account is $19.95 in setting up an "electronic bulletin board" for people per month.] interested in discussing the Viet Nam war and sharing Ifyou have a personal computer and a modem (today resources for teaching and research. Her idea was that you can get an inexpensive 2400 baud modem for about anyone, anywhere in the country, could access such a $80) you can usually access your school's e-mail system bulletin board with a personal computer and a modem. from home. In order to use the commercial systems you The project sounded good to me. but as I didn't own a must have a personal computer and a modem. modem at the time, I didn't think much more about it. Lydia being Lydia, she went ahead and did it. "How's Subscribing to the VWAR-L it going," I'd ask. "Great," she'd say, and then smile When you set up an e-mail account, you have, in sweetly and add, "Kali, dear, you really should try it out. effect, created an electronic "mailbox" which collects You 'll li ke it." And for almost a year she wheed led, cajoled incoming and sends outgoing "mail." When you subscribe and persuaded until 1 gave in and said, all right, already, to VWAR-L, you will get "mail" from everyone who sends how do 1 sign up? And 1 bought a modem and asked my mail to the list. Ifyou decide to send mail to the list, your in-house consultant about accessing this "VWAR-L" on message will go out to all VWAR-L subscribers. Think of "Bitnet" and he said smugly, it's about time you learned it this way.... You subscribe to VWAR-L. The next day, how to do this, and proceeded to "teach" me (computer you turn on your computer and check your account and scientists are not patient with stumbling humanities you have six, or ten, or fifteen "letters" in your mailbox scholars). Three frustrating hours later 1 had it under from people who sent "posts" (letters) to the list. You can control enough to read and send my first messages. read through these letters, and reply to any letter which Three days later I was completely convinced that ifyou interests you. When you reply, you have a choice. You unplugged the cord from my navel I would first grow may send a letter to the entire list (which is sort of like weak, and then sick, and then die. making a public statement), or you can send a letter Because I understand that not every reader of Viet directly to the person who wrote the original letter. Nam Generation has a live-in technical assistant. I'm Subscribing is very simple. Simply send mail (which going to explain, slowly and carefully, how you can 1) get your friendly techie will have taught you how to do) to this an e-mail account, 2) sign on to the VWAR-L, and 3) get address: the most out of the e-mail environment. [email protected] How to get an account If you are a faculty member or a student at a Your message should read simply: SUBSCRIBE VWAR-L. university or college, chances are that there is a computer services center on campus. Most likely, your institution What you've done is told the listserver at Buffalo that you is connected to either "Bitnet" or "Internet." Ask your would like to become a member of the VWAR-L(ist), and friendly, helpful computer services technician how you receive all the mail sent to that list. can get an account on either Internet or Bitnet and they The listserver is where you direct all commands. For will, no doubt, immediately leap to assist you. Do not be example, if you are going on vacation and you want to intimidated by all the shiny machinery in the computer make sure you don't come home to three hundred letters

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in your mailbox, you can send the command SET VWAR- reply publicly or privately, depending upon the content of L NO MAIL to the listserver. Or if you want to see who is my response. If I get an answer back, I suddenly find on the list, and get their e-mail addresses, you can send myself engaged in "conversation" with a virtual stranger, the command REVIEW VWAR-L to the listserver. Lots of with whom I know I share some common interests. At new users get confused and wind up sending these this point, most often, the conversation will move to the commands to the VWAR-L itself. General commands private sphere so that we can sound each other out and about the list go to the listserver. Letters you want begin to discuss issues which might not be relevant to all everyone to read go to the VWAR-L. Simple. members of the VWAR-L. The textual nature of the exchange gives e-mail The VWAR-L Community relationships a distinct shape. The normal questions of Currently, there are about 160 people signed on to gender, race, class and ethnicity are not immediately the list. O f these 160, perhaps twenty or thirty post raised, since neither conversant can see the other and messages. The rest are what we call "lurkers"—people must base his or her concept of the other person sheerly who read the mail they get from the list, but don't often on what they read. In fact, in the electronic environment, contribute to the conversation. (From what I understand, it is possible to constitute one's persona in any fashion this is a very common phenomenon.) New people are one chooses, to construct different personae for different always joining the discussion, and sometimes old members purposes. You might think that such "invisibility" makes will depart or fall silent. There are often multiple it hard to form meaningful connections with other people, discussions occurring between various list members at but I have found that this is not the case. "Invisibility" any given time. Each posting has a "Subject” header to confers a certain freedom from restraint, and so the alert the reader which conversation (or "thread") the letter conversations which take place privately on e-mail tend addresses. For example, there might be one discussion to have a rather intimate character. In my own experience, raging about recent findings on Agent Orange— those I've found that it's easy to "make friends" through an headers will likely have "Agent Orange" in the Subject exchange of text, and that it is as clear to me which folks field. Another current discussion might be about a I like and which I dislike on the network as it is in person. particular new book or movie, which will also be identified Since joining the VWAR-L some five months ago, I've in the Subject field. You may answer any, all, or none of made about ten new friends—all people with whom 1 now these postings, either privately or publicly. regularly exchange professional and personal information, As far as I can tell, many of the folks who post ideas and thoughts. I've also found that it's a pleasure to regularly to the VWAR-L are academics of one kind or be able to keep in touch with old friends who are on the another. Represented are disciplines as diverse as history, list, including Lydia and Cynthia Fuchs. (Although Cindy literature, film, Southeast Asian Studies, criminology, lives, literally, across town, we usually send each othere- anthropology, and library science. Quite a few members mail more often than we talk on the phone—and we talk are Viet Nam veterans or Viet Nam era veterans on the phone a lot. E-mail is just a better medium for (representing every branch of the service), and I know we transmitting requests for information, references, etc.) have at least a couple of Korean war veteran subscribers. There are a number of (perhaps apocryphal) stories Some are currently in the military, others are antiwar circulating on the net about people who have met through activists. Non-academic subscribers represent e-mail and fallen in love during their correspondence. professions from systems designer to airline pilot. All (Raises interesting questions about the construction of share an interest in the Viet Nam war and the Viet Nam gender and sexuality, doesn't it?) war era, all of them like to read, and many of them are My own experience is that meeting people I have talented writers. (We've published the work of five VWAR- befriended through e-mail is invariably pleasant. As L contributors in this issue.) Jack Mallory writes in his report on the W A W 25th Many posts regard requests for information, Annii>ersary Commemoration (concluding article in the references or assistance in researching particular topics. Announcements, Notices and Reports section of this That, in fact, is one of the great uses of the net generally. issue), several VWAR-L members encountered each other You can ask a question, and chances are that out of face to face for the first time. It was a bit disorienting to hundreds of readers, one will have a useful answer. find that familiar text suddenly attached to an unfamiliar Other posts are part of a lively exchange of opinions. Still visage, but after a few minutes the textual and physical other posts make available information on resources impressions merged into a whole person, and we simply which might be unknown to readers. Some VWAR-L picked up our discussions where we had left off on the members post copies of articles or narratives which they net. Friends are friends, no matter how you meet them. have written. A fair amount of poetry finds its way onto In a field like ours, where we are used to being isolated the net, along with song lyrics and the occasional joke. from our peers, where we look to our annual conferences The friendships which develop between members of as the place to hang out with and talk to our colleagues, VWAR-L are similar in many ways to those formed e-mail is a wonderful gift. No one is more than a local through other sorts of interpersonal contact. In my own telephone call away. case. I've found that the process of "meeting" people on The more Viet Nam war scholars we get onto the list, the VWAR-L works this way.... First I read something the easier it will be to exchange information. Collaborations which catches my interest, and to which I am attracted by between research scientists commonly take place on the some combination of style, tone and content. I will either net. Entire working groups, separated sometimes by

6 S u m m e r -F ail, 1992 V iet Na m G eneration V oLu m e 4 NUMbER 5-4 continents, are formed to undertake new projects, share Coleman, and David Connolly, as well as a collection of research, and set up databases of information. We historical essays on the early years of U.S. involvement in humanities and social sciences folks ought to take the Viet Nam war edited by Robert Brigham. Lady Borton advantage of the network resources that science money is working on assembling two anthologies of publications has funded (goodness knows we get little enough by Red River Press, the Foreign Languages Publishing educational development money of our own). If you're House of Viet Nam: a collection of folktales, poetry and teaching a course on the war. encourage all your students essays dealing with Viet culture, and a chronological to get accounts and to subscribe to the VWAR-L (last year compilation of Viet viewpoints on the progress of the Viet at least two classes did this). Lydia Fish has spent a great Nam war. We hope that at least one of these Borton deal of time and energy building and maintaining the anthologies will be ready to go to press in 1993. And, of VWAR-L for our community. We all ought to take course, we'll continue to bring you the best in advantage of it. contemporary fiction, poetry and scholarship in our I hope to find each of you in my virtual mailbox. regular journal issues. —Kali Tal SixTiEs G enerations

I'm going to be harping on this conference from now until next March. I hope that all of you will come. This is what we envision happening. We are planning four sessions a day, in which two panels of academic papers, one workshop for artists and one workshop for activists will run concurrently. We're also planning to have a book display room open during the entire conference, so we'd encourage those of you who have books in print to make sure that you arrange to have On Style copies to sell. We will have students working at the tables in the book room. We also anticipate two evening A few notes on language. Kali and I name our country performances during the conference—either dramatic “the U.S." As a business consultant I deal daily with productions, concerts, or readings. My hope is that this Americans in Mexico and Argentina and Peru who really will become a yearly event, a gathering place for scholars, don't want to be dragged into U.S. national identity. So artists and activists interested in the Viet Nam war, Viet I got in the habit of using “America" carefully. We here Nam war era. and the effects of the war on subsequent also write “Viet Nam. ” Kali and 1 never mean a war by that generations. You can help make the project a success by unless we say so. We call “Viets". I volunteering to jury papers, submitting your work, know, English-speaking Viets don’t say this, but I think suggesting artists or activists we ought to invite, and that's because too many of them are too kind and making sure that you and your colleagues all attend. tolerant, or perhaps have too low an opinion of Western We're trying to arrange the conference so that it is as intelligence and courtesy, to demand the word they use affordable as possible. We've signed a contract with the in Vietnamese. Holiday Inn, Fair Oaks (VA), near George Mason, and We don't have the time or the inclination to edit this within easy metro distance of DC. They've agreed to an publication with any consistency, but those are some extremely reasonable rate of $55 per room, either single goals. We'll start using diacritics sooner or later, for Viet or double rate. We have not yet determined how much of names and words. We’ve got the technology, so go ahead a registration fee we need to charge to cover our costs, but and put them into your manuscripts. Finally, we we're going to try to keep it under $50. I'll keep you up absolutely do not copy-edit this publication into Chicago to date on these matters as they progress. In the Manual of Style Standard English. If you have trouble meantime, you can help us by sending us the names and understanding an article, just contact the author or me addresses of colleagues and friends you would like us to or Kali for help. Many of our authors have been deep in invite to the conference. conversation with one another for several years. Some of them use idiom and reference and shorthand that may ThE F uture confuse you, especially if English is your second language, or you don't live in the States, or you haven't spent some Given that our health holds up and the money holds out, time near a university, or you don’t know many U.S. Dan and I have big plans for the future. This year we've veterans. Don’t be shy about asking for clarification. got two more new books on the docket (included in your Just get in touch. subscription price): Maggie Jaffe's collection of poetry. Continuous Performance, and a brand new novel by Viet Nam veteran Dan Barker, Warriors o f the Heart. Barker's story, “The Rescue," appeared in the Viet Nam Generation Newsletter 3:4, and Jaffe's poems appeared in Viet Nam Generation 4:1-2. For 1993, we're planning to issue collections of poetiy by Gerald McCarthy, Horace

7 S u m m e r -F a II, 1992 ViET Na m G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuiwbcR >-4

REMEMbERiNq T et, 1968: A n Dated Notices iNTERdiscipliNARy C onference on

THe ViET Na m W ar M ic h A E l B ib b y R e q u e s t s A r t Ic Le s Fo r a SpEciAl Is s u e o f Vie t n a m G en er a tio n c a LIec] An Interdisciplinary Conference On the Vietnam War: Remembering Tet, November 19-21, 1992, TUe Vie t Na m Wa r a n <1 PosTM odERNiry Salisbury State University.

Michael Bibby is editing an anthology for Viet Nam Schedule of Events Generation. He is soliciting papers addressing the 18 November: relations between the Viet Nam war and postmodemity. 7pm: Film: T.V.'s Vietnam: The Impact of Media Theoretical, political, sociological, historical, Moderators: Don Whaley, Peter Rollins, philosophical, and/or cultural approaches and studies and Jim Welsh. Discussant: David Culbert. of the plastic arts, mass media, popular culture, cinema, music, literature, material history, etc. are welcome. The 19 November: editor especially encourages papers that consider the 9-10:30am: "Official History of the Tet Offensive.” way postmodern discourses on gender, race, class, and Moderator: Jack Shulimson sexuality intersect with cultural discourses on the war in Presenters: Jack Shulimson, Graham C. the U.S. Submit manuscripts (approx. 25pp) to Michael Cosmas, William M. Hammond, George Bibby, Dept, of English. Univ of MN, Minneapolis MN McGarrigle, Edwar Marolda, Bernard Nalty 55455; (612) 377-4699 (home phone). 10:45-12:15: 'Tet Offensive from the Communist Perspective” Presenters: 'Vo Nguyen Giap and the Tet A m e r ic a ancJ V ietn am : F r o m W ar to P eace: Offensive," Cecil Currey; 'The Chinese A n International C onference Communist Party and the Tet Offensive," John W. Garver; 'The War Abroad: NLF's Foreign Relations and the Viet Nam Conflict." That's the name of an international conference to be held at the Center for Continuing Education, University of Robert Brigham. 1:30-3:15pm: 'The Viet Nam War and Political Notre Dame, December 2-4, 1993. The conference will be Correctness" concurrent with the annual meeting of the Great Lakes Presenters: "Reading Michael Cimino's The American Studies Association which will extend the Deer Hunter. Interpretation as Melting Pot," Conference theme of Reconciliation to include all aspects of the Viet Nam war and the Viet Nam war era. Deadline: Frank Burke: "Dying (Gloriously) Like a Man: Sublime Death Images in Viet Nam War Films," May 1993. A program with conference and hotel Karyn Ball; "From Viet Nam Protest to Political registration forms will be mailed in October 1993. That's Correctness: Little Big Man and Dances with all from Dr. Robert Slabey, English, University of Notre Wolves," Laura Turchi; 'Viet Nam Through Her Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, 46556-0368. Eyes: Reading/Seeing Surname Viet, Nam," Barbara Cantalupo. 1:30-3:15pm: 'War, Politics and Southeast Asia" LORRiE SMiTh SEEks SubMiSSiONS fOR A Presenters: "Ramifications of Tet on the War in c o LLe c t Ion of fEMiNisT REAdiNqs of VIet Na m Laos," Sandra Taylor: "Counterinsurgency and the Viet Nam War: A Reassessment of the WAR TEXTS ANd REPRESENTATIONS Malayan Emergency as a Model for Viet Nam," Albert Palazzo; "The Role of Religious Groups in Essays should be theoretically situated and refined but the Quest for Popular Government in Viet Nam," written in engaging, jargon-free prose. They might address John Alosi. any ofthe following issues: canon formation and revision, 3:30-5:45pm: "Comparing the Viet Nam to the Gulf cultural critique, representation theory and the writing of War" war, new historicism/gendered revisions of history, Presenters: "NothingSucceeds Like Failure?The women's writing on war, critiques of masculine discourse Impact of Rolling Thunder on the Desert Storm and representation, positioning the female reader/viewer, Air Campaign," Susanne Gehri: 'Through the the ways in which female texts challenge patriarchal Looking Glass: Comparing the Viet Nam and the hegemony. Please sent title, one-paragraph abstract, and GulfWars," William Head: "Perceptions Through short biographical/bibliographical sketch by Oct. 31 to a Seamless Web: Retrospectives on Air Power Lorrie Smith, Department of English, St. Michael's College, from Viet Nam and Desert Storm," Earl Tilford, Winooski Park, Colchester, VT 05439. Jr., "Parallels and Contrasts Between the Viet Nam and the GulfWars," Samuel B. Hoff: "Lessons Learned: The Gulf War and Viet Nam," Thomas Dombrowsky.

8 S u m m e r -FaII, 1992 V iet Na m G eneration V oIum e 4 NuivibER 5-4

7pm: 'The Media Project and Desert Storm." 9-10:30am: "Military Intelligence and the Tet Offensive" 20 November: Presenters: "Pre-Tet Military Activities," Robert 9-10:30am: "Viet Nam War Resources at the Nourse: 'The Warning that Left Something to National Archives" Chance: Intelligence at Tet," John Prados: Presenters: "Electronic Records and the Viet "General Tran VanTra: Reflections on Tet," James Nam Conflict: Leading Up to Tet," Diane Gillan. DimkofT; "Researching Tet: What Textual 10:30-12pm: "Minorities and Viet Nam Veterans on Records are Available?" Charles Shaugnessy; Film" "Moving Images in the National Archives Re­ Presenters: "Image vs. Reality: Hollywood's lating to the Viet Nam War," Les Waffen. Changing Depiction ofViet Nam Veterans," Marc 10:45am-12:15: 'Teaching Tet" Leepson; "Images of Afro-Americans During the Presenters: "Fighting Tet in the Classroom," Viet Nam War," Frank Manchel; "Jacknife and Michael L. Krenn; "A Critical Thinking Approach Masculine Identity in the Hollywood Viet Nam to Understanding the Tet Offensive," Marc Gilbert; Film," Michael Selig; "In Country," Stephen Crane. "Making Sense Out of Chaos: Recreating the Tet 10:30-12pm: 'The Great Society and the 1960s" Offensive in the Classroom," Steve Potts. Presenters: 'The Great Society in Viet Nam: The 10:45am-12:15: 'Viet Nam Documentaiy" Impact of Project 100,000 on the Marine Corps," Presenters: "Comments on Television's Vietnam: David Dawson: "I Love You—I Hate You: Surviving The Impact of Media," Thomas Slater: 'Viet Nam the Sixties," EarlTilford, Jr. and Elizabeth Kahn. and the Documentaiy: Reality and Dominant l-2:30pm: "Lecture—Marilyn Young" Frame," John Williams. Discussant: Peter Rollins. 2:30-4pm: "The Viet Nam War: Myth and Film" 1:15-2:15pm: "Lecture—Bui Diem." Presenters: "American Film Images of the Indo­ 2:30-4pm: "Literary Response to the War" chinese War," Peter Lev; "Reinventing Viet Nam," Presenters: "Disillusioned Patriotism: Firsthand Michael Anderegg: "When the City Burns, It's Accounts of the Tet Offensive," Bradshaw Frey: Serious: or, Tet and the Hyper-Epiphany of Hue "American Poetry Responds to the Viet Nam War: Burning," Owen Gilman. Robert Bly's The Teeth Mother Naked at Last,"’ 2:30-4pm: 'The Peace Movement" Gary Grieve-Carlson; "The Depiction of the Tet Moderator: Phil Bosserman. Offensive in Works of the Imagination," Steve 4-5:30pm: "LBJ and the Viet Nam War" Anderson. Moderator: Harry Basehart 2:30-4pm: "Ending of the War and the Homefront" Presenters: 'Tet Reconsidered: The Politics of Presenters: "Nixon's War," Arnold Isaacs: 'Tet War in Viet Nam in Early 1968," Robert Buzzanco, and Middletown: The Impact of the Tet Offensive 'Tet and President Johnson's Decision to Curtail on Muncie, Indiana," Anthony O. Edmonds: 'The the Bombing of North Viet Nam," Mark Jacobson; Viet Nam War and the Neoconservatives," Avital "Johnson and His War Advisors During the Tet Bloch. Offensive," David Barret. 4-5:30pm: "Remembrance and Reconciliation" 4-5:30pm: "American Popular Culture and the Viet Moderator: Ray Stubbe Nam War" Presenters: "Discovering Viet Nam," Robert Presenters: "Black Men with Guns," Cynthia J. Dalton: 'Viet Nam Legacy: Remembrance and Fuchs: "Images of Vietnamese in American Film: Reconciliation," Michael Shafer: "The Politics of The Mafia and the Super Capitalists," Renny Memory of the Viet Nam War," Herbert Hirsh. Christopher: "White Authors/Black Characters: 2:30-4pm: "The Viet Nam War on Film" The Uses of the Black Character in Viet Nam War Presenters: "I Believe That God Believes in Literature." Kali Tal. Claude," A. William Pett; "Making Art, Making 8pm: 'The and Viet Nam: The Future." History, Making Money Making Viet Nam," Kim Worthy: "Viet Nam Legacies in Film: The Paucity Information on motels in Salisbury, conference registration of Political Content of the War," Lois Vietri. forms and other details will be available by August 15. 7:30pm: "Lecture—R.W. Apple, Jr." Registration fee, which must be paid by all participants, has been set at $45. This includes dinner on Saturday 21 November evening. 9-10:30am: "Teaching the Viet Nam War" Presenters: "A Review ofTet Scholarship," David Contacts: Professor Harry Basehart, Dept, of Political Culbert; 'Teaching the Viet Nam War to Freshmen Science, Salisbury State University, Salisbury, MD and Other Fair Game," Gordon Munro; "Still 21801-6837: (410) 543-6242; FAX: (410) 543-6068. Playing: The Viet Nam War as Cultural Drama," David Ganoe: (410) 543-6100: Gains Hawkings (410) Pamela Hunt Steinle; "Reflections on Teaching 543-6030; Jim Welsh (410) 543-6446; Don Whaley the Viet Nam Conflict," Ellen Singh. (410) 543-6242.

9 S u m m e r -Fa II, 1992 ViET Na m G eneration Volume 4 NuiYibcR 5-4

Camp Keithley Announcements, N otices, Mindanao, P.I. April 1-10 Dear Mother anii Reports Received your letter of the 27 of Jan. about a week ago and was glad to hear from you. I also got a postal from Bert yesterday dated Feb. 3. Am sorry to hear that C o ver S t o r y : Why DAvid WillsoN W ent to you have been sick and hope it won’t occur again. 1 wrote a letter from Manila about the 15 of Feb. We arrived here V iET Na m on the 20 of Mar. after about 7 weeks in Manila in which we took part in the largest military samabal[sic] and manoeuvers which the U.S. ever held. We had a parade For years I had no good answer for the people who asked in the streets of Manila which was about 15 miles long me why 1 went to Vietnam. "Why didn’t you go to Canada? and between 15 and 20 thousand men took part in it. All Why didn’t you go to prison? I would have killed myself arms of the service were represented. We started at 10am before 1 would have gone to that war." These questions and got back at 6pm and the tail end were just leaving. We and comments were common in the 1970s, less common passed in Review of Gov. Gen. Forbes and his staff. My in the 1980s, never heard now. Of course, now 1 have a company received the most applause for military bearing good and honest answer for them. and etc. just as we reached the Reviewing stand the Gov. My Grandfather's photograph taken on the Philippine started the applause which was picked up by 20 or 30 Islands in 1911 was well known to me when 1 was a child. thousand Americans and natives and continued till the This photograph of Homer Willson is reproduced on the next company reached the enclosure when it died out as cover of the VG you are holding in your hands. He wrote fast as it started. A few days after we went up to Plongapo on the back, T h is is the style when you go out walking in the US Naval base in the Orient and engaged in Mimic CampTimpanan, Mind. PI. Does it look natural. See the warfare for 2 weeks some moving picture firm got a photo young cannon. Nipa shack in background is of the parade and are exhibiting it in the states now. We headquarters." are about a 1000 miles south of Manila now in the heart Many other photographs of the Philippine Islands of the Moro country and the toughest post in the P.I.’s We kept it company in a trunk in my grandparents’ attic in are about 3000 feet above sea level and can sleep under Thompson Falls, Montana. His letters were in the trunk 2 blankets and wear heavy underwear. Our post is a as well. I spent hours in that attic digging through Willson Regimental post and sets on top of a hill with miles of family treasures. beautiful sceneiy every direction and surrounded by Study the photograph, read the letters and tell me banana and coconut plantations. To the North is the how I could have considered Canada, prison or suicide famous Lake Lanao and Argus river with falls from 10 to alternatives to service in the US Army. 120 feet in height. The Spanish had 2 gun boats on the First, two quotes from: Our Islands And Their lake which is 15 by 30 miles. When the US came they People (1899): sank them and left. To the east is the wonderful Sacred Mountain from which no white man ever came back. The "’In many cases they [the Filipinos] are forced to natives worship this mountain. To the south is Pantar give up fine because they have been where a company of Scouts were massacred 2 months outmaneuvered. Moreover, the old saying: “He ago while walking along the road. On the west is Illigan who fights and runs away lives to fight another bay 20 miles distant which can be plainly seen on clear day," never had more value than with them; to days. The intervening space being large plantations stand their ground and get killed when they have employing thousands of slaves. Today is the 2 anniversary the whole island, nearly as large as Illinois, to of my time. I have 9 months here yet. Manila is certainly run over, would be poor tactics for a people who a wonderful city with Oriental architecture the buildings have no hope of expelling their invader, but who hanging out over the side walk and the famous walled city trust to the climate and nature of the country to surrounded by a which has been filled up on wear their enemy out and bring them victory account of Malaria. The Pasig river flows through the which they cannot achieve in open battle.'" (page center of the city. Would like to hear from the old man very 563) well. The tropical rainy season starts here before long and then I guess we will all sprout feathers like a duck and get Caption below a photo of Filipinos: These people web-footed. There isn't anymore news so will close hoping represent the lower orders and mixed races. to get a letter by the time you get this. Their squatting positions, similar to the monkey's favorite attitude, indicate no distant removal My Address is from the ‘connecting link.’" (page 588) Corp. Homer Willson co L. 6th Infty. Now, the letters: Camp Keithley Mindanao P.I.

Pronounced Minda.now

10 S u m m e r -F ail, 1992 ViET Na m G eneration V o Lu m e 4 NUMbER 5-4

Camp Keithley Mind. 20003. Both publishers offer a discount fo r more than ten Nov 29-10 copies. The book contains substantial references, as well as narrative and exposition. Bonacci's previous publications Dear Mother. include The Legacy of Colonialism: Health Care in Received your letter of Sept, and Oct 7—a few Southeast Asia. The state of knowledge about HIV in Viet days ago and was very glad to hear from you. Bert wrote Nam is evolving rapidly. The number I have heard thrown twice since the fire burned him out you said you sent him around at conferences this summer is "53 infected," out of one of my pictures well I sent him some of each kind that an unspecified number ofViets tested. For a sophisticated, I sent you and mailed them on the day that I mailed those updated figure, contact Bonacci via his publishers, or call you got. What did you have for Thanksgiving dinner? We 716-876-4006 (H), 716-731-3271, ext. 425 (W). Bonacci is had turkey from Kansas and sweet potatoes from the Professor of Human Services at Niagara County Community states also. I suppose the weather is pretty cold there College. now. It is just the same here as it was the day we landed here. You want to know where Tampanan is well it is In 1991, I was producing a documentary film on public about twenty miles from here and on the opposite side of . One of the most enlightening interviews Lake Lanao from where we are now we may go back there filmed was with the administrators of the Bach Mai the fifth of Dec. This will be the last letter that 1 will write Hospital in . until the day before I leave here for the States. There is no They told me that Vietnam’s Ministry of Health had use of answering this one as 1 wouldn’t get it before 1 leave tested 20,000 individuals and had found only one to be here anyway. And I don't expect to get any more here HIV-positive. They said (and this was later confirmed by either. Never felt better in my life and had less and I hope other officials in the Ministry of Health) that this one that I will remain well until I leave here. Tell Frank that individual was a young woman in City I will bring him a Bamboo Queen if he wants one as there (Saigon), who was believed to have had “intimate relations" is an over supply around here. Tell Mrs. Rice that I hope with a man from Frankfurt. However, they said, this she had a good time in Helena. Ifyou take a notion to write woman was placed on the “Orderly Departure Program” after you get this mail the letter to the address on the (ODP) and was presently residing in Australia. “You see, other side. Will close and write to Bert. the problem of AIDS in Vietnam is no more. We have fixed the problem." I was told. Homer Willson Assuming that the 20,000 people tested were indeed Ft. McDowell a representative sample, then extrapolating to Vietnam's Casual California population of 70 million people, there are in all probability a remaining 3,500 persons who are HIV-positive, that Be sure and put Casual on the envelope. Tell Gordan and presumably have not emigrated under the Orderly Granddad Hello. I won't get there until March 15, so no Departure Program. use to write much before that. When I traveled to Vietnam in January of 1992. to Merry Xmas and New Year consult to several Asia Resource Center Health Care You ought to get this by the 10 of Jan. projects there. World Vision was instituting a training 4 months all told to do now. Ha. Ha. program in AIDS education and several HIV testing centers in Vietnam David Willson, novelist and bibliographer, is a Contributing Mr. Wattonapong Santatiwat, vice president ofWorld Editor o f Viet Nam Generation, writing on REMF topics. Vision in Asia, was quoted in the Bangkok post on Contact him at Holman Library, Green River Community January 1, 1992 as saying that 31 people had now tested College. 12401 SE320thSt, Auburn, WA98002,206-833- HIV-positive in Vietnam. Throughout Vietnam, as I met 9111. health officials including those at the Cabinet level I was told either that “those tests were not properly done," of the 31, “30 were Thai fishermen fishing off the Vietnamese AIDS ANd HIV iN ViET Nam coast," or “the newspapers are making too much out of nothing." In short, the Vietnamese officials appeared to Mark A. Bonacci, Ph.D., and his publishers have generously be emulating the Thai stance of several years prior: sheer permitted us to reprint the section on Viet Nam from his denial. book, Senseless Casualties: The AIDS Crisis in Asia. Some were more realistic, however. Nguyen Dinh Perfect-bound 8 1/2 by 11, 121 pp, glossy cover with An, vice president of the People’s Committee of Quang reproduction of “AIDS Series/ Geisha and Bath, 1988", by Nam Province, stated, “I would say there are Masami Teraoka, watercolor on canvas, original 108" by about 200,000 prostitutes in Vietnam. This is caused 81", courtesy Pamela Auchincloss Gallery. This great firstly by the unemployment problem... With our open graphic shows a geisha opening a in the bath with door policy especially for tourism, the homecoming of her teeth. Never ever open a condom with your teeth, by 150,000 Vietnamese boat people under repatriation the way, unless you really want to transmit bodily fluids. programs and other factors, the chance for AIDS to Senseless Casualties is available fo r $12.50 from Don develop in Vietnam is very likely." Similarly, Dr. Nguyen Luce, International Voluntary Services, 1424 16thSt.NW, Thi Ngoc Phuong, Deputy Speaker of the National Suite 204, Washington, DC 20036, and from Don Luce, Assembly and Vietnam’s leading medical authority, told Asia Resource Center, P.O. Box 15275, Washington, DC, me, “We know that AIDS does not need a special visa to

11 S uivjiyier-Fa U, 1992 ViET Na m G eneration V o Iuivie 4 NuivibER 5-4 enter Vietnam." Further. Dr. Xung, the Director of the Ho become more endemic in Vietnam, to the degree that the Chi Minh City Drug Rehabilitation Center, told me in a economy hinges on the tourism trade. First, the increase filmed interview. Th e government says that there is only in the numbers of prostitutes catering to the foreign a handful of HIV positive but we have seen at our center tourists is already evident. Though officials of Vietnam many unexplained deaths amongst young drug addicts. Tourism have stated repeatedly to delegations I was on in Wc assume they died of AIDS, though they were never 1987, 1989 and 1991, that there is no tested." outside of (“and we are presently That Vietnam is not. in any way, prepared for an cleaning that up"), several male members of these AIDS epidemic, is self-evident. Because Vietnam is the delegations, including myself, received propositions in second poorest country on earth (only Laos has a lower hotel lobbies, bars and from women knocking on our per capita income) few resources will be available for HIV hotel room doors in Hanoi and Hue. testing kits or for long-term hospital care. Vietnam’s The extreme poverty facing these women dictates socialized medical system is already over-taxed by that they will ply their trades in even greater numbers as thousands of people who were disabled during the more and more tourists come to Vietnam. The prices we Vietnam-American war. were quoted by these women ranged from $10 to $50— Vietnam’s health officials are also hobbled by some this in a country where a secondary school teacher earns rudimentary misconceptions. I have been told by these approximately $10 per month. officials time and time again that “because there is no Historically (as in ) prostitution in Vietnam homosexuality here, AIDS is not a Vietnamese problem." has been viewed almost as an acceptable means of Both tenets in this statement are equally absurd. While helping the extended family economy. There are legions homosexual behavior may be culturally proscribed, a of folk stories of young Vietnamese women going to work taboo of sorts, it would be ludicrous to suggest that it does in the bars and to prevent their families’ loss of not occur. Further, even in the presumed absence of their ancestral farms. Indeed, , homosexuality, high risk behaviors engaged in by Vietnam’s most famous and legendary 19th Century folk heterosexual couples are as high risk as these behaviors tale by Nguyen Du, is about a beautiful young woman engaged in by homosexual couples. That vaginal who is sold into prostitution to save her family’s farm and intercourse is not considered as high risk for the receptive to prevent the starvation of her parents and siblings. partner as is anal intercourse is a moot point—the virus Characteristically, she is philosophical and asks, “What can still be transmitted in this way. does it matter if the flower falls, if the tree stays green?" The concept that it is behaviors, not sexual preference In this very romanticized view of prostitution, Kieu that places someone at risk of infection does not seem to ultimately comes home a heroine, surrounded by an be grasped by these health officials. Further, the high risk adoring and grateful family. The Vietnamese view of behavior of IV drug use is very prevalent in Ho Chi Minh prostitution seems similar to that held by most Thais; City and increasingly in other parts of the country. pragmatic and almost non-judgmental. In this milieu, Because Vietnam today, and to an even greater the combination of extreme poverty and acceptance of extent Cambodia and Laos, are countries in which deaths prostitution, dictates that the profession will continue to in the countryside from malaria, cholera and flourish. schistosomiasis are still commonplace, little attention The extent of the rise of the tourism industry in has been focused on this microorganism, the HIV virus. Vietnam should not be underestimated. According to the Many of the poor in the countryside, faced with these Saigon Times of January 8, 1922: “in 1991, there were more elemental and swift killers, may not hope to survive 180,000 foreign visitors to Vietnam... The number of the five to ten years past infection that the HIV virus will coming to Vietnam this year is take to claim them. 56,000. These figures represent a three-fold increase For several reasons, Vietnam will follow Thailand from last year’s figures." into this epidemic, albeit at a slower pace. First, Vietnam Further, there has been a tremendous influx of has tried, since the mid-1980’s, to emulate Thailand's foreign investment, which will no doubt be accompanied success in the tourism trade. Because of the U.S.- by non-Vietnamese administrators and personnel from imposed trade embargo on Vietnam and the fact that many foreign countries. Since the Law on Foreign Vietnam’s currency, the Dong, is not recognized on the Investment was liberalized in 1988 foreign capital international monetary market, Vietnam desperately investment in Vietnam has risen from 359 million dollars needs foreign currency. If the Ministry of Health of U.S. (in 1988) to 1.2 billion dollars U.S. (in 1991) (Saigon Vietnam wants to purchase pharmaceuticals from Italy, Times, January 8, 1992, p. 8). A release of January 2, Holland. , or Sweden (four countries that have 1992 from Reuters stated that approximately 20,000 in the past decade sent a great deal of medical aid to Japanese, British, French and Singaporean investors Vietnam) it must do so with the currency of these nations will have traveled to Vietnam in 1991. or with American dollars. Thus, the impetus to attract With the Vietnamese government’s announcement European and North American tourists to Vietnam has in early January of 1992 that “vast deposits" of uranium been very strong. If we assume that Vietnam presently had just been discovered outside of Da Nang and that has a rate of HIV infection of less that 1/10,000, we must marketing this and its offshore oil deposits would be a realize that this rate will increase exponentially with the “major emphasis" in 1992, one can guess that the influx influx of European and American tourists. Several social of foreign visitors will continue to rise rapidly. and economic factors also indicate that prostitution will

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Vietnam suffers from an additional dilemma, vis-a- suggested to the Vietnamese health officials that the vis . Culturally, they have rarely been used in most effective way for public health education to proceed Vietnam, where up until recently the infant mortality on this issue, would be to travel to Thailand and the rates (400/1,000 in 1954) were so high, and children a Philippines and study public health there, particularly much-needed agrarian work force, that contraception the Empower FVogram in Bangkok and the Gabriela was rarely an objective. Further, Vietnam presently has Network based in Manila. While these public health a large Catholic population and for this large minority education programs will have to be modified to be group, religious prohibitions against use of contraceptives appropriate for use in Vietnam, some of the techniques will have to be overcome. Vietnam does not manufacture have been very successful—working directly with the high quality condoms, and importing these is impeded by bar-women and prostitutes, the use of psychodrama and both the U.S.-imposed trade embargo and by the lack of organizing the men and women to demand more humane foreign currency. working conditions. According to most Vietnamese health officials that I Unfortunately, Vietnam is following the American interviewed and most Vietnamese people I met, the one pattern—too little, too late. condom factory, at ho Chi Minh City produces condoms of such “roughness and tendency to rupture" that using MuhAMMEd A ll these particular condoms is very unpopular. One silver lining to this predominantly dark cloud is I missed this event: “Mohammed Ali and American that public health has. in the past Culture," the E.E. McClellan Symposium, hosted by the forty years, been conducted with a great deal of Department of History. Miami University, Oxford, OH, on sophistication and success. April 10 and 11, 1992. Funding for the conference was In 1954, after the first independence war. ending provided by the E.E. McClellan Lecture Fund, with the with the Vietnamese victory over the French at Dien Bien assistance of the Department of History, The American Phu, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health mounted an Studies Program, the Provost’s Office, The Department of extensive public health educational campaign. At this English, The College of Arts and Sciences, the Department time, millions of Vietnamese suffered from malaria and of Physical Education, Health and Sport Studies, the from trachoma (which sometimes causes blindness) and Religion Department, the Affirmative Action Office, the hundreds of thousands from tuberculosis, venereal Office ofStudent Affairs, the Office of University Relations, disease and leprosy. There was only one physician for and the Black World Studies Program. Everybody loves every 180,000 citizens. Ali. The major emphasis of the public health campaign The program: Friday April 10, 1992, Robert Lipsyte. was on preventive measures, because machinery and speaker, New York Times, “When You're With Me. Bob. medicines which prior to this had been obtained from You've Always Got Something to Write About." Saturday, France became unavailable or exorbitant at black market April 11, 1992, lectures by various speakers. Convener: prices. President Ho Chi Minh recommended that medical Elliott Corn. Randy Roberts, “The Wide World of personnel should “focus their attention on the countryside MuhammedAli": Othello Harris, "Ali and the Revolt of the where the overwhelming majority of the population live, Black Athlete": Michael Eric Dyson, “Athletes and and combine as closely as possible, Western ‘modern' Warriors": David Wiggins, “Ali, The Nation of Islam, and medicine with traditional medicine, with a view to building American Society": Gerald Early, “Ali and Autobiography"; up a national scientific and popular medicine." Michael Oriard, “The Sports Hero in the Media Age": The major focus of the preventive medical program Alison Dewar, "Ali, Sports, and Gender": Tom Hietala. was general hygiene: cleanliness of food and water, “Last of a Dynasty: Ali. Joe Louis, Jack Johnson"; Jeffrey clothes and home. An educational campaign was Sammons, "Muhammed Ali. Rebel with a Cause". Nice launched, stressing the need to sink deep wells, drink set-up: a speaker every half hour, a discussion period only boiled water and for midwives to attempt to deliver after every two speakers, a break after each discussion. babies under as aseptic conditions as possible. These people all sound so interesting: Alison Dewar Vietnam was very successful in bringing down infant is a professor in the Physical Education. Health and Sport mortality from its prior rate of 400/1000 births and life Studies department at Miami University. She specializes span was significantly extended for the average in sport sociology, with emphasis on the study of feminism Vietnamese. and gender. Michael Eric Dyson is a professor of religion In more contemporary times, Vietnam has relied on at the University of Chicago. Cultural criticism and public education for an anti-smoking campaign and an African-American life are two of his main interests. attempt to slow the burgeoning population growth rate. Gerald Early is a professor in the departments of English. The Ministry of Health has attempted to use public American Studies, and African-American Studies at education to slow the annual population growth to 1.5 Washington University, St. Louis. He is a widely published percent. The “Three Lates,” late marriage, late pregnancy, cultural critic, especially on the subjects of blacks in and late second child are heavily emphasized in music and sports. Othello Harris is a professor in the government programs, policies and communications to department of Physical Education, Health, and Sport the general public. Studies at Miami University. He specializes in the sociology If some of the expertise and resources in public of the black athlete. Thomas Hietala is a professor of health education were directed toward an anti-AIDS history at Grinnell College. Robert Lipsyte is a columnist campaign, many lives would be saved. The author has for the New York Timesand formerly a correspondent for

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CBS. He has covered a variety of sports and written Scarlet was the media darling of the publishing world in several books: he is especially interested in the role of 1991. As the sequel of Gone With the Wind it was heir sport in society. Michael Oriard is a professor of English to a popularity and notoriety that few contemporary at State University. He has written on the sports novels or characters could touch. Moreover, it was a book hero in American culture; he is currently at work on a that couldn't help but make waves in the publishing book about early football. Randy Roberts is a professor of world. It signaled that publishers were following the lead history at Purdue University. He has written biographies of Hollywood in looking for a “sure thing," for sequels and of Jack Johnson, JackDempsey, and numerous textbooks. big budget concepts that with the right publicity campaign He is currently at work on two projects, a biography of just could not miss. It also reflected the way publishing John Wayne, and oneon Muhammed Ali. Jeffrey Sammons has increasingly become a global enterprise, a sign of the is a professor in the history department at New York prominent place American culture, media and University. His work has encompassed American boxing entertainment occupy on the world stage. On the surface, in the twentieth century, sport in South Africa, and, most Scarlet and Rhett might seem quintessentially American recently, the history of golf. David Wiggins is an historian characters, unlikely vehicles for a world-wide media and chair of the department of Physical Education, coup, but thanks to the film's popularity, these characters Health and Sport Studies at George Mason University. He and their antics are now known on six continents. It was has specialized in the history of sports among African- in the embrace of such notoriety that Scarlet was Americans. conceived, amid talk of movie rights, reissues and of I would have driven to Ohio for this conference but course the inevitable translations... including at least 1 first heard of it after it happened, when 1 read Robert one the publishers, with all their foresight, might not Lipsyte's “Backtalk: The Key to Understanding Ali,” New have foreseen. York Times, Sunday, April 26,1992:9.1 scan any article The world of Madison Avenue and media glitz into I see on the great man to see if the journalist mentions which Scarlet was born could not be further removed that Ali gave up his career, abandoned millions of dollars, from the reality of everyday life in Vietnam. In Vietnam, and defied the government because he thought that marketing, best-sellers and even commercial publishing killing was wrong. They usually don't. Lipsyte did, but are all recent innovations, but times are fast changing. made a gratuitous and untrue distinction between the Thanks to a booming market in Western translations that conscientious Moslem and the dirty longhair peaceniks has developed over the past few years, you can go to any who only opposed the U.S. commitment in Viet Nam bookstore and pick up a copy of Scarlet in Vietnamese. because they were high on dope. Get a life, Bob, or at least The Vietnamese publishers may lack sophistication read a few books. There’s a conversation about Ali in W.D. compared to their Western brethren, but they know a Ehrhart’s memoir Vietnam-Perkasie, by the way. Ehrhart sure thing when they see it. Given that Gone With the shows himself in a tent plotting targets for that night's H Wind is probably the best-loved movie of all time in & I fire, when Floyd Paterson taps him on the shoulder. Vietnam, it didn't take a Ph.D. in marketing to realize that The champ is there on a tour to cheer up the troops. The the sequel would be a money-maker here. soldier asks the fighter what he thinks about Ali defying Gone With the Wind's popularity in Vietnam may the draft. Paterson makes some gracious, positive come as a surprise to many Americans. It is not an easy statement that downplays All's remarks without at all phenomenon to explain and the reasons behind it are disparaging a fellow athlete. fertile ground for speculation. No doubt melodrama and I wrote to Gorn asking if we could print the essays romanticism play a role as does its enduring status here from the conference. He told me that Larry Malleyat Duke as a “classic.” A historian might look to the resonance of University Press already has them. I asked a university the Civil War setting with Vietnam’s own recent history, press maven about Malley and learned that he is the while a psychologist might speculate on the attractiveness editor to follow if you like sports history. of its willful and individualistic protagonists. Whatever the reasons. Scarlet is alive and well in Vietnam and selling briskly. The first printing of 3,000 copies sold out A L onq WAy fROM Tara in a matter of months and an additional printing of 5,000 is now on order. While such figures would hardly be cause for celebration in the boardrooms of New York, they A. Carey Zesiger was mistakenly reported in the last issue are considered quite strong in today’s market in Vietnam, as “Kerry Zefjiger." He had phoned me on his way Ha Noi, particularly when you factor in that it was printed in four looking Jor contacts. The following report came to life as a volumes and thus the circulation figures are really four­ class assignment, and was revised fo r publication in a Ha fold. To get an accurate picture of the book’s success one Noi newspaper. It came to me with a letter, dated June 1, must also consider its unusually high price of 70,000 1991, via a relative in the States. Zesiger has renewed his Dong for a complete set. While this is only roughly visa fo r an extended stay in Viet Nam. He has been in touch equivalent to six U.S. dollars, the deputy director of the with Dana Sachs and Tran Quoc Vuong. Sesto Vecchi publishing house in Hanoi put it in more proletarian thinks that Carey may be teaching English fo r UNDP there. terms: “If a peasant sold 100 kilos of rice, he still could not Contact: A. Carey Zesiger, International PO Box 72, Ha afford one new Scarlet, and my salary here at the Noi, Viet Nam, or c/oJudy Zesiger, 936 Fifth Ave, NY NY publishing house for a whole month is only enough to buy 10021, 212-737-9040)

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had been translated previously, they had been few in one." Fortunately for him he is allowed a free copy, but number and tended to be more literary in nature. Ernest less fortunately, he says with a smile, he is not allowed to Hemingway, Jack London, Mark Twain, and John resell it. Steinbeck, all translated before in limited quantities, now The publication of Scarlet shows a considerable gave way to the likes of Harold Robbins, Danielle Steel amount of ingenuity and dedication, and reveals how and Xtiven King (sic). It took the industry some time to competitive the translation business has become in adjust to the new demands of the market, but it did not recent years. The publishing house in Ho Chi Minh City take long to realize that there was a huge demand for the called on the talents of four different translators to bring sort of mass-market fiction that is popular at many an the book to press in under three months. Throughout this airport bookstand in the West. This fiction presented a time the project was shrouded in secrecy and fear some whole range of attractions to Vietnamese audiences competitor would get the book to press first. Predictably starved for information and entertainment. First it had all there are a few rough spots in the translation and some the proven plot elements of sex, violence, romance and critics complain that since the translator worked from a intrigue that made it so popular in the West. Coupled French translation it is really a copy of a copy. Where with this was the cachet of being Western and foreign in copyrights are concerned the book also occupies a country which had lived in virtual isolation from the something of a gray area. When asked about the subject West for some years. Finally, the fact that this sort of of royalties, the deputy director of the publishing house fiction had long been banned gave it a novelty and a shrugged and cited the economic embargo the U.S. has prurient appeal that was hard to beat. maintained against Vietnam since the fall of Saigon in During the early years of the boom more and more 1975. Under this embargo, the book probably should not publishers got into the act and each became adept at be sold here at all, in any language, but it is doubtful the novels through associates in Bangkok and publisher could repatriate royalties to the U.S. if they wanted to. There are signs however that the U.S. is slowly elsewhere. The translators of Russian and East European moving towards lifting the embargo and so this excuse language found themselves displaced at the publishing may not last much longer. houses by upstart translators of English. Where all these translators came from, in a country where English was The fact is that for some years now the embargo has rarely if ever taught is something of a mystery, but from done little to stop the flood of American goods into 1986 to 1991 over 150 American novels by 90 different Vietnam as witnessed by countless novels, videos, cans of Coke and packs of Marlboro cigarettes that line the authors made their way into translation. This does not include another hundred-odd books from Great Britain, streets here. Once the Vietnamese declared the period of Renovation in 1986 and stopped resisting the influx of including such popular authors as James Chase, Agatha such goods, they appeared virtually overnight, through Christie, ad Erie Gardner. The popularity of these novels such indirect sources as Thailand, , and in the early years due to their novelty and lack of Indonesia, with the result that the embargo has become competition led to soaring circulations, but such a one-way funnel. Plenty of goods and information from conditions could not last forever. The appetite for mass- the U.S. come into Vietnam, but very little ever goes out. market fiction seemed at first insatiable, but sometime In this one-way isolation, Vietnam harbors a quiet about 1989 the bloom fell off the market. Translator and editor Thai Ba Tan of the Writer's Union Publishing obsession with the U.S. which goes beyond the initials U.S.A. that adorn many a , T-shirt or pair of socks, House estimates the average circulation of a best-seller beyond Gone With the Wind and the oft-repeated from the West is now about 2,000 copies compared to questions about the embargo. The United States in 30,000 or more a few years ago. Vietnam as in many parts of Asia, has acquired a mythic The turning point seems to have been about the time dimension for what it symbolizes in terms of freedom and of the publication of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, which fast-living, largely through images provided by its appeared in 1988 and soon became legend in Vietnam's entertainment industry. This fascination stands in stark small publishing world by selling close to a million copies. contrast to the mood on the other side of the Pacific, “What happened?" I asked Professor Nguyen Lien of where America seems to want to forget Vietnam or to Hanoi University, who said simply, “There are too many recreate it through the lens of that same entertainment books. The reader is tired." The deputy director at the industry. In America, the word Vietnam conjures up Literary Publishing House which brought out first The ghosts from the past that often obscure the Vietnam of Godfather and now Scarlet, put it slightly differently: the present. Such dynamics make the U.S. and Vietnam “Too much information. It is a boom of information, the oddest of couples, more incongruous than Scarlet newspapers, TV, video, radio..." There is no doubt some and Rhett on the worst of days. While Vietnam courts the truth to this. Market reforms have transformed the news U.S. as a vision of a potential future, the U.S. shuns media in Vietnam, bringing to the previously dull and Vietnam as a painful reminder of the past. colorless newspapers, investigative reports of corruption, It is little wonder then that following the market gossip, photos culled from western magazines, and a reforms ofVietnam's Sixth Party Congress in 1986, when spate of “human interest" stories. This coupled with the book publishing was liberalized along with many other growing presence of video cafes, VCRs and video rentals industries, there was a precipitous drop in the number of have cut into what little leisure time the Vietnamese have Russian books translated and the American best-seller at their disposal. Finally, the cover prices of these books have climbed out of reach of many Vietnamese, who have exploded on the scene. Although several American novels chosen to rent rather than buy their books. They can now

15 S u m m e r -Fa II, 1992 V iet Na m G eneration VoIume 4 NuivibER 5-4 rent eight or ten different books from a neighborhood way out of their current fiscal problems, something store for about the cost of buying one. irrevocable has taken place in Vietnam. In a few short While liberalized strictures on publishing have made years the publishing houses have gone from being it possible for the first time to publish the great authors of conservatism and Party ideology to being the heralds of the West, they have in the same stroke made these of Western influence. In the process old dogmas have authors unmarketable because of competition from been jettisoned like so much excess baggage in the haste thrillers, romances and detective novels. Translator Thai to meet the demands of the market. The deluge of mass- BaTan complains there is not enough interest in serious market American fiction that has come rushing in to fill literature in Vietnam today, so that while Harold Robbins the vacuum cannot help but have cultural repercussions has been translated in bulk, such writers as William here, though exactly what they will be, or what form they Faulkner have not been translated at all. Mr. Tan said he will take is hard to say. Clearly not all the effects will be would like to personally translate The Sound and the positive. Already reading of more serious fiction has Fury and Light in August, two of his favorites, but in sharply declined and it is increasingly difficult for even today’s market they are unpublishable. “We want to the most talented local writers to find readers. publish such books," he said, “but the taste of the readers I spoke with Dr. Phan Cu De about some of the is not for that.... There is no publishing house now that potential implications of this spree of translation. Dr. De can publish poetry. It’s the market mechanism, it's very has read the translations of some forty or fifty American sad." Right now Mr. Tan is working on a translation of the best-sellers as part of his research on the American novel Canterbury Tales, which he also may have trouble in Vietnam. From his bookshelves he produced stacks of getting published. If so, he might choose to bankroll the books by Sidney Sheldon, Jacqueline Susann, even a project himself as he did last year with a collection of novelization of the TV show Dallas that bears a translations of Classical Japanese poems which he gunslinging rabbit on its cover. According to Dr. De, when published himself at a cost of one million Dong. “Ten the Vietnamese reader picks up one of these books, he is years ago people read serious books," he laments, “before making an imaginative voyage to America: “The young 1986 the government would tell the publishing house students [of Vietnam] don’t know anything about life in what to print and they would print it." The people then America and the West. That’s why they read. They don't had no choice, because there was nothing but “serious" have the opportunity or the money to visit." In talking to books to choose from. many Vietnamese youths 1 have gathered a similar Mr. Tan also had some things to say about the impression. Their curiosity about American society is so influence this literary invasion is having on Vietnam's great and their knowledge so uneven that every new bit domestic writing. “Our writers now tend to write books of information becomes another piece of a vast puzzle. with exciting plots. Thrillers you see. Then some started Never mind that the pieces come from sources of widely to write about sex from their point of view. Not so openly different reliability, here fact and fiction comfortably as in the U.S.. but..." As he listed off subjects of sexuality, intermingle. America is a catch-all name for the place violence, social problems, rape and murder, I began to where Scarlet, Michael Jackson, George Bush and wonder if anything was still taboo. He replied that often all coexist amid a landscape of fast cars, vast mansions the publisher will opt to tone down some of the more and untold wealth. At first I did not understand why graphic scenes. “In a publishing house such as ours we science fiction was the one popular genre that seemed have to consider everything carefully, from a pedagogical notably unsuccessful here, then 1 realized that ALL these point of view for the whole society." If they are not careful, books serve as science fiction. When readers here want to he said some “old people" have been known to write indulge in the escapist urge to travel to a futuristic letters of complaint to the authorities which can lead to technological society, they need look no further than the fines or other problems for the publisher. The subject of next continent. From the vantage of Vietnam and much domestic politics is also dangerous ground, and advocacy of the developing world, the America of pop-fiction, film of democracy and a multi-party system is still strictly off- and TV is a curiosity, an oddity, a strange world populated limits. by alien beings who inhabit a landscape that is as Now is a difficult time for the publishing houses. The breathtaking as it is unreal. competition between the various publishers has grown When the Vietnamese look in on this alien world, Dr. cut-throat and it seems there is a glut in the market and De suggests that one of the things that catches their declining demand. Mr. Tan hopes perhaps some foreign interest is the range of personal freedoms they see. Dr. De sponsors can help him in his ambitious project of creating explains: “What interests me in these [American] books is a library of the world’s best authors, translated into freedom. In the Vietnamese family there are many feudal Vietnamese. Despite the recent downturn, he is hopeful ties and the young people are subject to a lot of pressure for the future. “I am not a prophet," he said. “I am from the old and also from society. But in the American concerned about translating to make money, but I think family they have freedom. They can make their own the problem will be solved. The good novels will be decisions and choose their own future." While the youth popular again. The ballooning popularity of cheap books of America might dispute this claim, to the Vietnamese is because they were forbidden for so long. We were students who can expect to live at home until marriage thirsty, hungry for this... Maybe soon it will be balanced and beyond, the freedom of American youth is readily according to the laws of market economy." apparent. For these youths, America offers a vision of the Whether or not the Vietnamese readers acquire a possibility of freedom without responsibility: taste for more literary fare, or the publishers find their individualistic, willful, monetary, sexual. Buried deep

16 S u m m e r -Fa II, 1992 ViET Na m G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuivibcR 5-4 beneath these dreamed-of personal freedoms one liberalized press and so they ran, without editorials, the occasionally hears a whisper of longing for political facts as they came in off the wire. Again it was mainly our freedom, but often more as an afterthought. Except with cameras that did the filming and our press that did the a very few thinkers and intellectuals it seems the draw of reporting and again the Vietnamese could only translate conspicuous spending, consumerism and free living is so what we gave them. But perhaps something was lost in much more tangible that it all but eclipses political the translation. These Vietnamese students approached concerns. me as if seeking an explanation for the events. How could It is significant perhaps that while the government such a thing happen in America, they wondered, weren’t feels the need to control some of its more avante-garde the police in control? Above all they seemed to want to local writers and artists, it has very little need to interfere know what to do with this latest incongruous piece of with the business of translation. So little thought is their jigsaw Americas. How was this latest snapshot of involved in many of these books from the West that there urban America to be reconciled with the vision of gleaming is very little of substance to censor. Rather they are and prosperous consumer society from sea to shining effectively self-censored for they present America and the sea? I looked at the pieces they held before me and saw West in its most dissipated and fetishized form and their confusion and I suddenly found myself at a loss for generally eschew questions that might demand that the words. reader stop and think. Whether the book in question is a self-indulgent romance or an action-packed thriller, the political content of the average best-seller insofar as it might concern the government here is virtually nil. It is C a II Na m one of the outstanding ironies of the transformation that has taken place here, that the same aspects of Western AT&T signed an agreement with Viet Nam officials to capitalism that were vilified a few short years ago as signs reopen direct communications service between the U.S. of “decadence" are now put on a pedestal in the pop media and Viet Nam for the first time in 17 years. The signing and admired as “freedoms." One may wonder if they were took place 3 days after the U.S. announced a decision to completely wrong. lift its ban on telecommunications with Viet Nam. AT&T The perception of America here in Vietnam is in said the start of service hinges on acquiring all necessary many respects distorted and incomplete. Under the U.S. regulatory approvals, but that it hoped to offer a circumstances it could hardly be otherwise. What is limited direct-dial service in a few days by sending calls disturbing, however, is that these distortions have little through third countries. The company said direct links to do with a War that was fought many years ago and still could be available in a matter of weeks. (From the W all less with government organs of propaganda. We in the Street Journal ). AT&T will offer international direct U.S. are printing our own propaganda and painting our dialing, operator-assisted and AT&T Calling Card calls to own likeness. If it amounts to little more than a crude Viet Nam from the U.S. and collect and AT&TCalling Card caricature of our ideals, our beliefs and ourselves, we calls from Viet Nam. Eventually, the company also is have no one but ourselves to blame. In Vietnam they planning to offer AT&T USA Direct Service and fax merely translate, however imperfectly, the scripts and service. AT&T will use 210 undersea-cable, microwave the plots we provide. As entertainments spun for our own and international satellite circuits to provide service. amusement, perhaps these stories have their place, but AT&T said its service will be priced from $1.77 to $2.91 when held up to the world audience they become tokens a minute, based on time of day and length of call. Once of our society, often taken as a model for imitation. This phone service is restored to Viet Nam, only North Korea is a role to which they are poorly suited. It seems there is and Cambodia will remain cut off from U.S. phone lines. a chasm, if not an outright contradiction between the role AT&T recently received US approval to restore service to America wants to play on the world stage and the way it Cambodia and now is trying to negotiate an agreement wants to behave at home. This disparity is particularly with Cambodian authorities. [NY Daily News). crucial in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. If Excerpted from A T & T Today. we are to be a role-model in the widely proclaimed New World Order, we should take care to put our best foot forward and offer a role worth emulating. I attended a party recently in Hanoi where I spoke C E cil B. CuRREy w r it es: with several Vietnamese college students. One student told me about her favorite film. Gone With the Wind, I recently received my copy of Informed Dissent: Three which she was proud to have seen four times. She had Generals 81 the Viet Nam War and was mildly offended. read the sequel she said, but it wasn’t as good. After a In his essay, Dan Duffy described Edward Lansdale (page while another student asked about a more topical subject: 5) as an “intrepid Army Colonel" and “an executive" of the he wanted to know more about the recent events in Los CIA. He was, of course, wrong on both counts. Lansdale Angeles. was Air Force and never held an executive position with Unlike their Chinese neighbors to the north the the Company, not even as chief-of-station (which, after Vietnamese press was notably silent on the recent events all, would be pretty far down the totem pole). Then on in . They seemed to want to play it down and page 6 Duffy asserts that “Harry Summers, colonel of scorned the kind of grandstanding the Chinese indulged infantry was negotiating the U.S. exit from Sai Gon." He in. However, news travels fast these days with the never did. He was a very low-level assistant to an assistant.

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In the two major essays by Buzzanco and Ismi I Hand planes sprayed 850,000 acres of jungle. In count many references to Lansdale and at least eleven 1967 they dumped the deadly powders on one and a half citations in their notes. Ismi, in particular, deals with the million additional acres. Army helicopters were equipped efforts of Lawton J. Collins to get rid of Ngo Dinh Diem with special tanks and nozzles and sprayed around the and asks “Did Lansdale disobey Collins’ explicit order....?" perimeters of fire support bases to keep killing zones free He ends with the observation that “evidence that could from obstacles. The same lands were repeatedly sprayed conclusively answer the above question remains in as the tough jungle vegetation tried to reclaim its own. documents still classified by the CIA." Even in generally quiet and safe locations, American It is not a mystery at all for I dealt with the matter in troops regularly ducked under cover to avoid low-flying my Edward. Lansdale: The Unquiet American (Boston: helicopters as they buzzed about their business of spraying Houghton Mifflin, 1988). It astonishes me that so many the ubiquitous ground cover. In their hooches at eventide, “sage” comments would be offered about this man without these soldiers had to shake powder residue from herbicide even a basic reference to my well-received biography of sprayings out of their blankets before climbing into bed. the man. Perhaps that explains the many errors contained Warnings of the possible dangers to humans from in the essays of Dully, Buzzanco and Ismi. contact with such herbicides were made known at least as early as the administration of Richard Nixon. His Sincerely. science adviser. Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, called Nixon's Cecil B. Currey attention to a 1969 National Institute of Health report 3330 Lake Crenshaw Road claiming that high dosages of 2,4,5-T caused stillbirths Lutz. FL 33549 and malformations in mice. Yet by 1970, 200,000 gallons a month of Agent Orange were being used in Viet Nam. Dan Duffy replies: Lansdale was Air Force officer. He Some suggested substituting Agent White, but it was was an executive o f the CIA. that is. he acted under that more expensive and persisted longer in the soil, increasing agency's authority, fo r their interests, at his own initiative, the possibility of long-term ecological damage. and supervised agents in their employ. Summers' role in Defense Secretary Melvin Laird considered curtailing the withdrawal was small. I tried to make that point with the use of such herbicides, but General Creighton Abrams, sarcasm, but Cecil Currey's blunt statement is more exact commander in Viet Nam, and his boss, Admiral John S. and powerful. It was a substantial oversight not to mention McCain, Jr., Commander-in-Chief. Pacific, as well as Currey's authoritative biography of Lansdale in the volume. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, acting Chairman of the Joint Our valued subscriber and contributor has not specified Chiefs of Staff, reaffirmed the necessity for its use. any errors in Buzzanco's essay or in Ismi’s. General Earle G. Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, added his voice to those of his colleagues. Ending defoliation would take away from the military its ability to REsiduAl DioxiN iN V iet Na m : C u rr ey R epo r t s expose enemy encampments, storage depots, and main supply routes. Despite that pressure, David Packard, American advisors in Viet Nam during the early days of Deputy Secretary of Defense, announced that use of U.S. intervention there often complained about the ability Agent Orange was to be suspended. Planes of the Seventh ofViet Cong warriors to hide within the jungle fastness of Air Force flew their last defoliation sortie on 7 January the land where they could not be seen. As early as 1961, 1971, although they continued to spray crops. (Later Walt Whitman Rostowand Robert McNamara discovered there was at least one unauthorized use of Agent Orange that army chemists were experimenting with powerful in the provinces of QuangTin and Quang Ngai to defoliate herbicides, based upon a compound of 2,4-D and 2,4.5- base perimeters and to destroy crops.) T laced with dioxin. McNamara and Rostow believed use Official figures indicate that the planes of Operation of this defoliant in Viet Nam might solve the problem of Ranch Hand ultimately poured nineteen million gallons guerrilla lairs. Tons of this substance were sent to Viet of chemical poison on over twenty percent of the entire Nam in different color-coded barrels: each color striped land area of the Republic of South Viet Nam: nearly six on a barrel designated a separate strength or compound. million acres. President Nguyen Van Thieu announced The most commonly used was shipped in orange that herbicides had destroyed twenty percent of his containers, and thus the phrase “Agent Orange" passed nation's forests. An additional 150,000 acres were into the English language. Beginning in January 1962, destroyed in Laos and an uncounted number in Cambodia. the Kennedy administration ordered the Air Force to One and one-third million gallons of unused Agent dump defoliants on selected areas of the Ca Mau Peninsula, Orange were retrieved from South Viet Nam by April the southernmost region of that Asian land. C-123 aircraft 1972, to be stored with an additional 850,000 gallons made thousands of such sorties in this program which that had not yet been sent to Asia from depots in the U.S. was designated “Ranch Hand." Pilots chuckled that their Department of Agriculture standards for the use of motto was, “Remember! Only you can prevent forests.” herbicide spraying with the U.S. limited the average They soon turned thousands of acres of jungles and rice concentration of dioxin to one-half to one part per million. paddies into mud wallows. Agent Orange contained two to four times that allowable In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson ordered an amount. The compounds were finally destroyed on 3 increase in the use of herbicides for defoliation and crop September 1977 aboard a ship in the North Pacific, reduction. If the enemy could noteat, neither would he be equipped with special furnaces for destroying toxic able to fight. The Air Force willingly complied. In 1966, substances. The cost was eight million dollars. To the

18 Summer-FaII, 1992 V iet Na m G eneration V oIum e 4 NuivibcR 5-4

Upon our arrival on Thursday, 24 March 1988, my last, military chiefs maintained that here was little or no interpreter, Le Hong Lam, and I were met by a delegation danger to human beings from use of such herbicides. consisting of a man. Professor Dr. Bui Sy Hung, Director In 1970, a four-man task force composed of scientists ofTu Du, and two women: Professor Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc from the American Association for the Advancement of Phuong, Chief Gynecologist, and Dr. Le Diem Huong, Science went to Viet Nam to investigate the long-term Chief Pediatrician and the head of neonatology—all effects of Agent Orange but were kept from having access assembled to greet their western visitor. We seated to necessary data by the military. Their preliminary ourselves in a nearby conference room, plain and starkly report, issued 30 December 1970, indicated little forest utilitarian. On the long table around which we gathered, regrowth even after three and more years. Bamboo had however, sat a beautiful flower decoration which I admired spread to reclaim forest floors where once hardwooc s had while we were served refreshments: tea and small bananas. grown. Coastal mangrove swamps were destroyed, nearly The director gave a few words of welcome and then all trees dying after one spraying, not expected to i etum excused himself for urgent business elsewhere, leaving to their former state for at least a hundred years. Thirty- Dr. Le Diem Huong in charge of our visit. six percent of all mangrove forests were gone. Rc cords A woman of about fifty, she had the face of a saint were inadequate, they said, to conclude that herbicides and the dedication of a missionary. She was a woman caused birth defects, but they noted that it had been the comfortable with herself and her work. As I listened to my civilian population rather than enemy troops who had interpreter translate her words, I watched her kind eyes consumed nearly all the food sprayed under the crop and careworn expression and was impressed by her inner destruction program. strength. She spent some time on her briefing and then And there the matter of defoliants rested forme until gave me a tour of the hospital. 1988 when, at long last, the government of the Socialist Tu Du faces unique problems. The sixteen provinces Republic of Viet Nam finally gave me permission after from which it draws the bulk of its patients also happen four years of requests, to visit that country and to travel to be those which received the largest amount of defoliants its length and breadth, talking with people at all levels used in Viet Nam during the period when U.S. military and photographing whatever I wished. I was a colonel in forces fought there. Dr. Huong believes dioxin is now in the Army Reserve, a professor of military history at the the food chain in that area, an inextricable part of all the University of South Florida, and the author of nine books. water and meal and vegetables the inhabitants there As a youth 1 had resisted church-sponsored servic e as a consume. American soldiers came in contact with missionary in foreign lands. That trip to Viet Nam caused defoliants for one year (unless they extended their time in me, a man nearing sixty years of age, to reconsider that Viet Nam—an option exercised by only a few men). For the youthful decision! Vietnamese, the land is theirs for life, with all the dangers During that March trip, I requested a visit to fu Du that continued exposure may bring to them. Obstetrical and Gynecological Hospital in Sai Gon, for I Neonatology, the area Dr. Huong knows best, contains had heard from others of a sad and mysterious exhibit 150 beds reserved for difficult and premature births. kept there within a locked room. I wanted to see it for During 1987, the hospital supervised the delivery of myself. I already knew that medical needs in Viet N; im are seventeen thousand babies of which 30 percent were immediate and drastic. Its citizens are generally v tamin either difficult or premature. In areas north of the 17th and protein-starved. Intestinal parasites and mala ria are parallel, she said, the incidence of such problems is endemic. Polio, diphtheria, and other diseases aHict a much less significant. An example: 18 percent of births large proportion of the population.. Many people suffer at the hospital were premature: for Sai Gon, the incidence from what their physicians believe may be the after­ was only 12 percent. For all of the south, the figure was effects of American use of defoliants, for the residue of 10 percent, and for Viet Nam as a whole, 8 percent. that outpouring of herbicide has entered the food chain. Birth defects are common. I was shown several In that land of problems, Tu Du and other hospitals fight premature infants huddled in their outmoded incubators, a lonely battle. and saw tiny babies with gross cleft palates, marked with Tu Du is a primary health care facility of 759 beds absence of limbs or ears, hydrocephalic—all abandoned serving the women of sixteen southern provinces a round by their horror-stricken mothers. One sweet premature the former capital city of the southern republic—and baby girl lay in her incubator, a picture of beauty until a there I came into first-hand contact with what may be the nurse turned her and I saw that she had been bom after-effects of Agent Orange. Founded over fifty years without a left shoulder and left arm. Another with a ago, the present physical plant, located inside a walled dismaying cleft palate lay nearby. compound, consists of three pleasant bui dings In 1987, Dr. Huong told me, forty infants suffered constructed during the French occupation in 1937, in from neural tube defects, forty from cleft palate, thirty- 1965 while U.S. forces were beginning their bu ld-up, two from malformation or absence of arms or legs, and and in 1985, after unification. Oleander bushes dot the everyyear since 1975 the hospital has been the site offive courtyard and that day blooms hung in profusio i from or more conjoined (“Siamese") births. I visited with one the branches. It provides care without cost. In 1987, such twin, seven year old Nguyen Viet-Duc, born at Gia hospital physicians examined 1,800,781 women who Lai-Kontum on 25 February 1981. Abandoned by their needed maternal care and delivered 17,002 infan :s. The mother when she realized what she had delivered, Viet- institution is divided into four sections: gyne :ology, Duc had since remained at the hospital. They were obstetrics, neonatology, and family planning. conjoined at the pelvis: one anus, one penis, one urinary

19 S u m m e r -Fa II, 1992 ViET Na m G eneration V o Iuiwe 4 NuivibcR 5-4 tract, one bladder, two kidneys, three legs— two of them In the thirteen provinces around Sai Gon, young tiny and stick-like—that rose from the pelvic area: the women of eighteen and nineteen fall prey to this cancer— other twisted and atrophied, and separate torsos. On 22 and there are no chemotherapy medicines to save them. May 1986, Viet fell prey to acute anencephalopathy and I visited their ward of sixty beds which normally contains by October of that year had lost cerebral cortex and between eighty and ninety patients. Some women lay two reaction functions. He suffered from constant respiratory to a bed. Many of these sad creatures simply lie there and urinary infections. Since Viet had no sensations passively waiting to die; their cancers had metastasized when eating, his food often diverted into his trachea. He to their lungs and elsewhere even after removal of their remained hydrocephalic, comatose and ill: his system uteruses. Most had not been told that further efforts were pouring poisons into his twin. Due, on the other hand, hopeless, but their expressions showed they knew they was lively and bright, but increasingly subject to illnesses would die soon. given him by his twin. Dr. Huong spoke of her hopes of Somewhere on the grounds that day, impressed with interesting a team of foreign physicians in coming to Viet her work, I told Dr. Huong, “Vbus ete la mere Theresa de Nam to operate on Duc-Viet. (I again visited Tu Du in HoChiMinhVille." She looked blank, either because of my December 1988 and found that the previous September French pronunciation or because she had not heard of a group of Japanese physicians had performed the surgery. Mother Theresa or her work in Calcutta and elsewhere. Both twins still survived, although there was no hope for When 1 explained, she disclaimed any accolade, saying the vegetative one: Viet was near death, kept alive only by she was not worthy of such an honor—a most Mother extraordinary measures. Due—who for the first time in Theresa-like response. his life now had mobility in a wheelchair—smiled and told As I took my leave. Dr. Huong told me that many had me that one day he hoped to become a soccer goalie.) come as visitors toTu Du, listened gravely to her and even Every two or three days, physicians at Tu Du deliver sometimes promised to send help. She had not heard another deformed fetus. Dr. Huong ushered me into a from them again, she remarked, without any trace of large room, perhaps twenty-five feet long by fifteen feet rancor or bitterness. I did not say so aloud, but inwardly wide, its walls covered with floor to ceiling shelves. Other, pledged myself to help. Upon my return to the U.S., in free-standing shelves filled much of the floor space. company with my accountant, my lawyer, a Vietnamese Everywhere were two-and-a-half gallon, formalin-filled friend who works in the public health sector in California, Bell jars, in each of which floated an aborted or full-term and a Thai businessman I had met, I formed "American fetus. The hospital administration had, for a time, ordered Medical Help for Viet Nam." We were fortunate. On my all such specimens to be preserved for later scientific second trip to Viet Nam in December 1988,1 took with me tissue studies, but has not done so oflate because oflack nearly a ton of donated medicine and supplies, twenty- of funds to purchase even so cheap a material as two boxes worth approximately $25,000 and distributed formaldehyde. Many were genetic monstrosities: twinned the material between Tu Du Hospital and another 1 had or triple conjoined, hydrocephalic, some covered with visited earlier in the north—the Institute for Protection of cancerous growths, their eyes staring blankly through the Mother and the Newborn in Ha Noi (Professor Dr. the glass at sights they would never see. Dr. Huong, who Duong Thi Cuong, Director). spoke French, waived her hand at the shelves of grossly Other non-governmental agencies have also pledged deformed beings and sadly told me in that language. themselves to provide aid to Viet Nam despite obstacles They're not babies. They're monsters." And they were. placed in our way by various agencies o f the U.S. The genetics of one fetus had gone so awry that its government acting on orders of successive American genitals were growing out of the middle of its face! The presidents: Ford. Carter, Reagan and Bush—they have Vietnamese wonder whether this great incidence of all obstinately refused to allow direct aid or shipment of deformity has not been heightened by the toxic poisoning of goods to Viet Nam. After all, that nation had the temerity their land during the warfrom the widespread use of defoliants. to defeat us in combat. In the meantime, while we Tu Du does more. It also cares for women suffering passively wait for such agencies to change their policies, from hydatidiform mole and choriocarcinoma. The former thousands upon uncounted thousands of Vietnamese causes a woman to believe she is pregnant, but it is not die unnecessary, slow and lingering deaths—many of a fetus inhabiting her body but rapidly developing cysts them due to our poisoning of their soil. Most caught in the within the uterus. The latter is an extremely rare, very coils of that persevering compound were once citizens of malignant neoplasm of the uterus. It can happen to the Republic of South Viet Nam—our ally in the fight women of any culture, but usually strikes them in their against the government in the north. In April 1975 their fourth or fifth decade or even later, and in the West, this land was occupied by troops of the People’s Army of Viet malignancy is regularly cured through chemotherapy. Nam, their government collapsed, their leaders fled. They Ninety-two percent of such patients in America, for remained behind and have experienced repeated example, are still alive five years after the disease has punishment because of where they lived: re-education been detected, unless it has metastasized to the brain, camps, poverty and inflation, unemployment and health while in Viet Nam it is simply and inevitably fatal, for Viet problems linked to our use of herbicides. And we have Nam has little access to chemotherapy drugs. In all turned our backs. countries of southeast Asia, choriocarcinoma accounts for one of every two thousand female patients. In southern Cecil B. Currey, Founder, American Medical Help fo r Viet Viet Nam. that figure doubles and for the sprayed areas Nam, Address 3330 Lake Crenshaw Road, Lutz, FL33549 the figure is six per cent or higher.

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D.S. LI'iteras THe W oR ld's a S taq e W e G o ThRouqh

From David DeRose, our drama editor: In the In a Warrior's Romance by D.S. Lliteras, a book of December 1991 issue of Viet Nam Generation, I photos and haiku, nine inch by seven inch blue paperback. reported on a new drama by Steve Tesich, The Speed of Hampton Roads Publishing Co., Inc., 891 NorfolkSquare, Darkness, in which two Viet Nam veterans are united Norfolk. VA 23502,804-459-2453,800-766-8009, 1991. after a separation of almost twenty years. Recently, in a Cover has a long vertical photo of a soldier in cammies Village Voice interview, actor Stephen Lang, who played and boonies and two bandoleers of great big rounds, one Lou, the homeless veteran, in the original production of hand on a pole flying Stars and Stripes. By the photo is The Speed of Darkness, talked about a rather a blurb from E.R. Zumwalt, Jr., Admiral. U.S.N., (ret.). On disturbing incident which occurred in performance. the back is a wide horizontal snap of five more guys in cammies, none facing the camera, one boonie hat, one The play dealt with Vietnam veterans, and one , a grenade launcher, some rifles, a lot of stacked night there was this disturbed guy in the audience. , and a blurb from Donald S. Beyer, Jr., Lt. “I saw that on Geraldo," he calls out in a deep Governor, State of Virginia. Pages 2-199 are facing-page voice at one point. And a few minutes later, he compositions w/a snapshot on the left and a poem on the says in an even more sepulchral voice, “I hope I right. Alarming snaps—apparently someone gave military don't have to come up there." Needless to say, weapons to a bunch of teenagers and turned them loose we're all getting a bit tense. in a tropical country. All photos black and white. There So I’m into my big monologue, about using a is a long vertical gray block toward the outside of each can opener to scratch my name onto the wall of page, a black outline on the top and bottom of each block the dead in Washington, when suddenly I see on and around all four edges of most of the photos. The one of the actors' faces a look I've never seen in snaps themselves are well-composed, in some cases by my life-a look of unmitigated horror. I turned the photographer and other times by his subjects. The around and emerging from the penumbra is this photographer is not identified and neither is anyone else. huge, fucking guy, bearded, flannel shirt, the The varying uniformity of the page design twenty years classic Vietnam vet who came back to the States later lends both immediacy and artfulness to what might and went to live in the woods with nothing but a have been a jumbled shoebox of fading keepsakes. Each knife. And the expression in his eyes?—I mean poem goes with its photo—as a caption or a comment or this could have been explosive. a reaction. There is an effect of timelessness, and sure I was terrified—what if the guy had a gun?— enough the author makes clear in his “Preface" that he's but something told me to stay in character, and innocent of history. He thinks “history" is "campaigns I turned around, walked over to him. reached up and casualty statistics... the broad brush stroke." Sigh. to put my hands on his shoulders and said, “No. Well, leaving alone what Lliteras hasn’t done, he sure has no, no, you can't be here now. This is my house, made a lovely book. According to the author's note at the and you can't be here now." He just stood there, back of the book and to what he told me on 30 May 92 at so I repeated what I'd said as firmly as I could— the W A W reunion, Lliteras enlisted in the U.S. Navy in I mean my cylinders were really firing. “We'll talk 1967. He served in Viet Nam in 69-70, earning a Bronze later," I went on, "but we can’t talk now. You Star with a Combat “V" as a hospital corpsman attached understand? You have to got" Well, finally, to the First Reconnaissance Battalion, First Marine without saying a word, the guy just turned, Division. He earned an M.F.A. in theater from Florida walked offstage, walked out of the theater, and State University, worked in the theater in the 1970s and we never saw him again. (Village Voice, 31 March wrote several plays. He sailed on merchant vessels, then 1991: 104) earned a commission at Navy OCS and worked as Diving and Salvage Officer. He is now a firefighter for the City of Speaking of plays and of vets who “went to live in the Norfolk. His haiku have been published in the US. woods," a new Viet Nam veteran drama by (non-veteran) Canada, Japan, and India. The page facing the title page playwright has recently been produced in gives acknowledgment to previous publishers. The author Seattle and Philadelphia. The Redwood Curtain is about looks a lot like the soldier on page 32 who is not an Asian. a young woman who travels to the redwood Whoops, Lliteras just phoned in to say that his novel, In forests of Northern California because she believes her the Heart o f Things, is now out from Hampton Roads father is among the Viet Nam veterans living as hermits Publishing Co, 800-766-8009, $8.95 trade paperback. in the woods there. She encounters a man named Lyman It’s about two homeless vets living in the streets of whom she decides, despite his silence, is her father. Baltimore, Maryland who embark on a spiritual journey. I promise to give you the lowdown on The Redwood Lliteras says “It's not about depravity. It's about the Curtain as soon as I am able to locate a copy of the script. conditions men live in and the conditions they can rise out of." —David DeRose. Theater Studies, Yale, New Haven, CT. 06520. 203-432-1308.

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F roim P eter D a Iey American domestic needs have suffered from neglect while the government wasted billions of dollars on war. I have just arrived back in Australia but before 1 left LA 1 The Commission of Inquiry can be contacted at 36 E. spoke by phone with Bill Short and amongst the many 12th Street, 6th Floor, NY. NY 10003, or by phone at (212) names and addresses on Viet Nam, he gave me yours, and 254-5385, FAX (212) 979-1583. They’ve got a book out. I think the editor is Dan Duffy. My notes are a little rushed described on p. 47 of issue 4:1-2. so I hope I got it right. Dan, I’m a Viet Nam vet and an artist from Australia Tour GuidES and I’m currently involved in organizing “DOGTAGS" an exhibition of approx. 30 Americans, 20 odd Australians, plus several Vietnamese artists. We also have approx. 20 Carol Miller at Lonely Planet was nice enough to send a American, Vietnamese & Australian Women Poets in the complimentary copy of Southeast Asia: On a show. It opens on the 11 th Aug. at the COACH HOUSE Shoestring (7th edition. ISBN 0-86442-125-7, $19.95, GALLERY SYDNEY and at the DRILL HALL GALLERY 928 pages, Lonely Plant Publications, 155 Filbert St, THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY CANBERRA Suite 251 Oakland. CA 94607, tel. 510-893-8555, FAX: ACT. 12 Sept, and will coincide with the V. Veterans 8563) after we published Dana Sachs' review of Lonely Memorial Dedication (early October.) Planet’s Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia: A Travel Could you send me some info, maybe a couple of SurvivalKitin VGissue3:3, pp. 75-6, so I'll put in a plug back copies ofyour newsletter I can forward more complete here. All sources agree that the Lonely Planet guides to details on the art show if you would like. I look forward to Asia are the best ones for student and budget travelers. your reply. Best regards—Peter Daley, 44 Rival Street, The Southeast Asia title is the firm's first and flagship Kareela, 2232, N.S.W., Australia. book, first issued in 1975. New editions are regularly updated from sources in the field, giving specific directions for places to stay and eat and things to do. Having a guide to the whole region is an advantage, since anyone who G u lf W ar C r Im es TRibuNAl iN New H aven: J o eI goes to Viet Nam will almost certainly pass through Thailand at least. The SE Asia book covers Thailand, Viet ScliEchTER R ep o r t s Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, the Philippines, , Brunei, Indonesia and Macao. The history sections are Joel Schechter of the Yale School of Drama and the New reliable and insightful, phrased with forthright delicacy. Haven Advocate reports: Dissenter and actress Margo Daniel Robinson is credited with two of the Indochina Kidder joined other witnesses at an International War chapters, but Joe Cummings, an RPCV who served in Crimes Tribunal hearing in New Haven, Connecticut, on Thailand, who holds an M.A. in SE Asian Studies from October 30, 1991. The open public forum was one of some Berkeley, seems to have played a hand here as well. For thirty hearings to be sponsored across the country this a guidebook devoted to Viet Nam alone, with more fall by a Commission of Inquiry, which seeks evidence of cultural information and less about cheap travel, see American war crimes committed in the Persian Gulf War Barbara Cohen’s Viet Nam Guidebook (Houghton last winter. Mifflin, 2nd ed., 1992) also reviewed by Sachs in VG3:3. The Commission of Inquiry began last May, when Dana and Barbara are both in Ha Noi now, by the way. one of its founders, former Attorney General Ramsey Dana is studying Vietnamese with the formidable Nhu Y Clark, said that the conflict in the Gulf “was not really a Nguyen of the Institute of Linguistics (Vien Ngon Ngu war. It was the use of technological material to destroy a Hoc, 20 Ly Thai To, Ha Noi, Viet Nam) and teaching some defenseless country. From 125,000 to 300,000 were English to the family of economist Hong Lan Tran. killed." Commission evidence suggests that the United Barbara gave up her medical practice, put her house on States government planned the war against Iraq before the market, and moved to Viet Nam this March. There is that country invaded Kuwait, and the Pentagon then nothing more precious than freedom and independence. employed excessive and indiscriminate force resulting in The retired psychiatrist organized the non-profit Southeast considerable civilian casualties. Asia Cultural Association just before leaving the States. Margo Kidder spoke on behalf of her friend, Dr. She has established herself at the old Esperanto Club in Yolanda Huet-Vaughn, a U.S. Army physician sentenced Ha Noi. She recently wrote asking for anthologies of U.S. to two-and-a-half years in prison because her oath as a literature. Send books to Barbara Cohen, c/o “Especen", doctor made her refuse the call-up to serve in the Gulf. 79E Hang Trong, Ha Noi. VN. tel: 2.66856, FAX: 84 42 Another speaker, Nation magazine writer Bruce Shapiro, 56562, fax must include her above address. If you're reported on the Pentagon's censorship of the media and planning a trip to VN, it would be worth your while to do loss of free expression by American dissenters as a result Dr. Cohen a favor now. She's a good friend to have in Ha of the Gulf War. He said that the military expected Noi, volunteer soldiers to leave their consciences behind when the entered the Armed Forces: by his count at least fifty- four soldiers are now serving prison terms for refusing to fight in the Gulf. John Jones, a Vietnam veteran and now a housing rights leader in New Jersey, discussed how

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M uI t iC uI t v r a I R e v ie w L auncMeeJ ThROuqh t Me EyES o f O ne V et: D an OkAdA R e p o r t s on H unter C o IIeqe C onference In January 1992, Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., launched Multicultural Review, “an interdisciplinary Having just attended the 10th Annual Hunter College. forum of multimedia citations, informative articles, and School of Social Work's conference on “Vietnam Veterans incisive critiques representing the full spectrum of the Hidden Client," I walked away with a feeling of American ethnic, racial and religious diversity. Educators, dismay. As with most multi-faceted programs the good as administrators, and librarians in school, public, and well as the bad were in evidence. The good was okay; the academic facilities will finally have a single, authoritative bad was abysmal. If this gathering of social workers, selection tool for outstanding work from the breadth of therapists, veterans, program administrators, and others American cultural traditions." presumably interested in the plightofthe Vietnam veteran Publishers are encouraged to submit current and was indeed representative of the support and services forthcoming titles, catalogs, or title specifications, for available to vets, perhaps vet-isolationism is not such a review consideration. Submission guidelines, as well as terrible alternative. the editorial statement and editorial calendar, are available As a preface, the intent of this conference, that is, the upon request. reason for its existence, was manifold: to help those who Inquiries and submissions should be directed to work with vets better understand their client; to discuss Multicultural Review, 10 Bay Street, Department 205, various methodologies that might better provide assistance Westport, CT 06880. Please direct editorial inquiries to to the vet; and to provide the vet who needs services with Brenda Mitchell-Powell, Editor-in-Chief; direct customer resource information and clinical support. service, subscription fulfillment, and advertising inquiries Having missed the first nine conferences, I am to CP Subscription Publications, 88 Post Road West, Box assuming that was indeed the focus. Unfortunately, in 5007, Westport. C T 06881. year ten. the clinical participants appear to have taken over and thevet has successfully become "interesting," as in, “Aren’t these guys interesting?" This is not necessarily RANdy RowlANd A nnounces R eaI H e r o e s to criticize legitimate concern, it is however, an indictment P o s t e r S e r Ie s of the therapeutic process that compels those dealing with the problems of the vet to “fit" vet symptoms into When the Gulf build-up began, we started a project to psycho-analytic cliches. The manner in which trained uphold, celebrate, and support military resisters to that social workers have determined that treatment should be war. This took the form of an art project ofduotone mini­ administered to vets-in-need is to look up our ailments in posters of various GI resisters. the therapeutic bible, DSM-III, and promote the prescribed I recently got a photo of Glen Mulholland from him, “appropriate" treatment. Is this true concern? and have now released the newest poster in the series, A short performance of the current play “A Piece of #43. Glen is doing an 18-month sentence in the Camp My Heart" by one of the cast members opened the LeJeune Brig for refusing to participate in the Gulf conference. This is a work based on Laura Palmer's Slaughter. He was in the Marines for 11 years before that, anthology Shrapnel in the Heart which in turn is based serving in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. He saw a lot that on messages/letters that have been left at the Wall. It was he disagreed with and the Gulf War was the final straw for moving. The keynote address was delivered by the famed him. The photo of him on this poster shows him kissing pioneer and inspirational leader of the PTSD and the his son. Vietnam veteran movement. Dr. Chaim Shatan. DrShatan Posters in the series are printed using a duotone presented an eloquent history and analysis of the plight laser print process which I developed for the project. Each of the vet. He is a good one to have on our side. poster features one GI resister to the Gulf war. Each mini­ Unfortunately, the focus of the conference—the poster is 8.5x11” workshops—did not equal the emotion or content of The Real Heroes series is produced for ‘ Collective Novella Nelson's reading or Dr Shatan’s overview. Media a non-profit collective in Seattle. If you would like Workshops were divided into two areas: one was a copy of the new poster or of the entire series, email recommended for veterans and novice clinicians, the “rrowland" on PeaceNet, write to Collective Media, PO Box other for “veteran" clinicians experienced with PTSD. 20213, Seattle WA 98102, phone (206) 521-0327, or fax Since I thought I knew something about PTSD 1 attended (206) 325-7794. two workshops for the latter group. While the workshop We have been asking for a donation of $2 per leaders may truly care for those they assist, that concern individual poster, or $40 plus postage for the entire set. was not transmitted to the audience. Upon hearing the (Payable to Collective Media) process these folks have initiated with vets and their I can make a set of the posters available on Macintosh families I very much felt that the vets who sought aid from disk to progressive publishers for $25 for the 10 disk set. these clinicians would have been better served by buying These are Pagemaker files with accompanying tiff files of a dog. In one workshop, the clinicians boasted o f having the resisters. had one vet and his family for over four years and have now gotten them to the point that they are considering divorce!

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The case study presentations in two workshops advocate to so these issues can be raised, discussed, offered little or no insight into the issues being discussed analyzed, evaluated, and resolved. This annual conference and did not demonstrate much appreciation of the vet can be that vehicle and the participants can be that underscrutiny. Instead ofhumanizing the vet, discussing advocate, but the organizers need to reflect on their the reality of being a vet and the symptoms that could be original mission, i.e., aiding those who are/were reluctant generated because of this status, the presenters chose to to seek aid. objectify the vet and treat him as any other social service It might be argued that after ten years, the passion client. In fact, there was a presentation of a case of a 35 surrounding vet issues has cooled. Perhaps it is time to year-old substance/child abuser. When asked about his move on in the therapeutic world and seek other groups- age, the case worker was not sure, but she “believed" the in-need. Unfortunately, there are still many brothers and client to be a Vietnam combat vet. Not. In this case, rather sisters “out there" who need the services of the than simply saying the methodology they were presenting compassionate and skilled. Ultimately, if this conference could be appropriate for vet populations also, the message is to progress to years eleven and twelve and beyond, it was that vets definitely should be treated with the model must regain its initial integrity and purpose. We are still being discussed. in need of consideration and are still seeking answers to Perhaps this is the therapeutic milieu, clinicians questions we do not know how to ask. I hope this must remain detached from their charges; but there is conference is not a harbinger, because if it is then to detached and then there is detached. Rather than relating paraphrase the song, “We are looking for help in all the the need for compassion, the presenters voiced the need wrong places..." for compelling methodology. Rather than outlining what made the vet unique, they described what made him/her Dan Okada, Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice, Marist similar. Given the make-up of the audience, vets and College, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601, (914) 575-3000x2952, social service providers, the presentations were almost e-mail: [email protected] insulting. In other workshops, participants who were actually doing something for the vet had significant discussions F r o m P a Im e r Ha II with their audience. One was a former Qui Nhon MP, who, like most others who have sought assistance for Vietnam I contacted Bill Ehrhart two weeks ago about including vets, found none and organized a vet self-help organization some of his poems in a new anthology of poetry I'm editing without the benefit of agency backing or institutional for the Pecan Grove Press. It's called A Measured support. The Vietnam Veterans Hootch Group was his Response and is including recent poems written on the creation and attempts to find housing and provide focus Persian Gulf War and poems about Viet Nam written for displaced vets in the greater Brooklyn area. Another within the last fewyears. My own impression was that the workshop addressed the problem of substance addicted Gulf War reawakened a lot of emotions among those of us vets and was led by a former convoy driver/social worker. who were in Viet Nam during the war years. I was there The lessons presented in this workshop were also in 1967— 1968 as an interpreter/translator and much of compelling. This is the issue: those clinicians who seem what I had experienced came back to me. I didn't find the to be most empathic are former vets. Is the Vet Center cry Gulf War healing in any way. of “Vets Helping Vets" still true? It certainly was at this At any rate, I contacted Bill (1 had read his Perkasie conference. novels and some of his poems) to ask if he would care to It is categorically impressive that for the past decade contribute to the anthology. He told me about the book he Hunter College has sponsored this event. Organizers, had done for your group and I got a copy from him. That’s presenters, and participants are to be congratulated for a long story, for this medium (e-mail). But I very much recognizing a need and trying to provide a service. It is too enjoyed the book and the cover art. bad the theoretical focus of the conference was not Attached to this is something I wrote about my first carried out in practice. In examining the conference- few days in Viet Nam. I left Chu Lai for Pleiku and Dak To reality from the two perspectives presented, the therapist in August, 1967. and the veteran, the vet once again got screwed; issues Best to you and your project. were introduced but not discussed, dispassion rather Palmer Hall. than compassion was exhibited. For the therapist, E-mail: [email protected] products of their education and not their heart, process rat her than substance was stressed. Maybe if the therapist already knows the jargon and has successfully detached P a Im e r Ha II's S t o r y him/herself from the vet then learning alternative methodologies is relevant, but if that was the intent the Once, in a small hamlet outside the large Army/Marine leaders also did a poor job of educating the audience. installation at Chu Lai, early in 1967,1 stood with a group Clearly the twain was not meeting in New York's Upper of techies from the 601 st RRU—that’s a group of linguists East Side. and Morse code operators plus a few other MOSes for The workshops did identify the areas in which vets those who do not know. We were haggling over the cost of and their families need assistance. Vets do have problems this and that, things like genuine jade chess pieces that related to homelessness, substance abuse, and other would bleed the green right onto your fingers if you were psycho-social disorders. They need an arena and an sweating and you were always sweating in Chu Lai,

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Vietnam, Republic of. We stood up above the rice canal pretend they actually went out in the bush. The hat’s that ran behind the small hamlet, all the shops perched important, you know. Not because it was a hat, but precariously on the edge, and haggled for chess men, because it was that kind of hat, that kind of bush hat. jackets, genuine Ming vases, and for the rental of female You have to understand, too, that Vietnamese women companionship. always looked younger than they were or much, much I remember clearly a guy from Seattle, Dale older. Chuyen looked as well developed as some of the something or other, the last name is not important, he prostitutes who worked in the bars on Tu Do Street in was frightened—his first time out of the base camp, Saigon and along Le Loi Street in Pleiku, but then again, though not more than half a kiick out—and I think, to no one really knew how old those prostitutes were. So cover his fright, he “acted out” the bad guy image. He was when Dale saw Chuyen he saw more than a young girl not, at heart, a bad guy, just frightened and even more holding her baby brother, he saw more than a child frightened of letting any of us know he was frightened. holding another child and he was scared in spite of the Let me describe her for you. She was about four feet bullshit and he was embarrassed to be the only one. he tall and could not have been older than twelve — obviously thought, in the whole fucking detachment not to have poor, there were no middle class people in Chu Lai. at found some woman to “make him a man" when he was still least not Vietnamese people. She had long brown/black in the States and, be assured, that’s how Dale thought of hair and was very slender, breasts just beginning to bud it, of sex, of releasing into a vagina instead of into a hand­ and carried her baby brother on her hip. But she was . Dale saw Chuyen and began to walk toward her. clean and her brother was clean. He had on a shirt and “How much?" he asked. in the way they did things, no bottom. It made sense. If “Toi khong biet," she said. you're not old enough to go to the bathroom, why not just “I said ‘how much?' you fucking whore!" Dale let the urine and shit fall onto the ground? The girl was screamed. tired, had obviously been kept awake by the shelling the “I no whore," she said. night before and had come to the little market for “How the fuck much?" he asked again and grabbed something—fish, vegetables, maybe even to beg from the at her shoulders. American long noses she knew would be there. “Di di mau, G.I. I no whore," Chuyen said again. Let me talk about Dale again. He was also young, That's pretty close to the whole conversation. It filled with American innocence and that kind of tough/ didn't get really bad until we all started laughing. “Hey, naive bravado that is common among 18-year-old Dale," someone screamed, I don’t know who, not me. American men when they are in groupings of other men “Hey, Dale, CherryBoy! Can't even buy it!" “Show her your near their age or older. He was not, and I want to stress money," someone else screamed at him. this, he was not a bad person. In Seattle, he had fished The whole group roared, laughed, tormented him. and hunted, had played baseball, had dated, had managed Dale's face turned cherry red and he grabbed Chuyen somehow to retain his virginity and continued to resent hard and pulled her towards him. Chuyen spat in his face it even the day after the first night he had ever heard the and Ngo began crying. “Sonofabitch!" Dale screamed in shrill whistle of 105mm rockets grow awesomely silent, to her face and pushed her hard. Chuyen and her baby be followed by the loud boomings and the cries from men brother fell to the ground. like him but whom he did not know and, now, would I was, as is so often the case, the oldest person in the never know. Dale was big, right at six feet two inches and group—a Spec 5 linguey who would rather have been burly, with kinky hair sitting above his normally too red anywhere else. I managed to grab Dale and shove him back face. He was not well-educated, but had graduated from to the ditty-boppers and calm Chuyen down. It always high school, one of the first people in his family to have amazed me that just the fact of an American speaking the done so. language could make the Vietnamese people want to listen On this day after the night of the rockets. Dale was and trust. I don't mean speak the patois that most even worse off than he had been the day before and the Americans could speak, but actually converse in day before he had thrown himself under his bunk when Vietnamese. the housegirl had walked through looking for boots to The White Mice (ARVN MPs) showed up shortly after clean. I mean he was so cherry his face could have been I had Chuyen on her feet and Ngo back to her (he was still used on a box of Smith Brothers cough drops. But on this crying—it sometimes took years before the Vietnamese day, Dale was swaggering. He had survived last night. It had cried so much that there were no more tears available. didn’t matter that almost everyone had survived last That's one of the reasons we American soldiers resented night. All but three men out of approximately 6,000. Dale them: they seemed so emotionless most of the time). No Last Name had been through his trial by fire and had When we got back to the company area, the Captain come out the other end ready to boast about being a man. had already heard about Dale's problems from the ARVN. Her name, we found out later, was Chuyen. Bang Probably if Chuyen's father had not been an officer, the Van Chuyen. And her little brother was named Ngo. Her whole thing would have been dropped. Dale was still father was an ARVN captain and was stationed on the lucky: he received an Article 15 and was restricted to the base at Chu Lai. I still remember her vividly. No ao dai, company for fifteen days. just those long silky-looking pants, not new, but with a A true story: anticlimactic, certainly. If I were doing matching blouse, with worn spots all over it. She didn't it as fiction, it would certainly not have ended this way. have a conical, bamboo hat on, but one of those Australian I mean Dale's still alive somewhere. I don’t know, though, bush that the REMFs had taken to wearing to about Chuyen and Ngo.

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Since her father was an officer, she probably became Jeff STEiN WRiTES a secretary on the American base—I mean the “war" didn't end for eight more years. If she didn’t become a Dear Kali, secretary, she probably became a prostitute. But, then, we didn’t win, so her father and her and, even, Ngo Thanks for responding to my note about my forthcoming probably wound up being “re-educated" in some camp. book, A Murder in Wartime: The Untold Spy Story of True stories are often as sad as fiction. that Changed the Course of the Vietnam War. 1 would of course be very pleased if you chose to review it in the journal. R eese & C o. But I’m really writing to tell you how impressed I am with the latest issue of Viet Nam Generation. I've edited Another fine catalogue from the firm discussed on pp. 36- or worked on many low-budget publications through the 7 of VG 4:1-2. #J09; Literature has an “Addenda: years (including launching the W A Veteran), so I know Vietnam Literature. Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry and how hard it is to reach such a high level of quality. To start Photojournalism." 138 items listed. I sorted through the with, the design and typefaces are not only beautiful but stock at the firm's offices—the books are almost all bright functional. The material flows nicely from one subsection and clear, in stunning condition. Other items of interest to the next. The absence of overly dramatic, magazine- scattered through the main body of the catalogue. Write style section heads is also refreshing and works very well. to Reese & Co. 409Temple St, New Haven, CT06511,203- Editorially, the Journal is rich and informative. So 789-8081, FAX 203-865-7653. much is going on—it's incredible, and satisfying, to learn Whoops. Here’s another Reese catalogue in the mail. that so many people are toiling away on these issues. Catalogue 111: Poetry and Poets. Verse and Versifiers. Overall, though, it's like coming upon a samizdat Including Images Poets, Soldier Poets, New York publication of the 1970s Russian underground: despite Poets, Beat Poets, Academic Poets, Great Poets, Good George Bush’s whining cry to put Vietnam behind us, Poets and Failed Poets. Part 1: A through Me. A real Viet Nam Generation makes clear that many good keeper, this catalogue reminds me of my education in people are doing important work to come to grips with the 19th and 20th century U.S. poetry, when I fingered legacy of Viet Nam and other uncured ills of the 60s. From through the stock at Hugh Miller's and Matthew and the mainstream press, you’d never know so many people Sheila Jennet’s warehouses, and took whole shelves of cared so much. Or even that the work was worthwhile. random books from the right part of the Sterling Memorial Many thanks for reminding me that writing my book Library stacks over to a chair in the corner. was a worthwhile endeavor, no matter what the reviews Here is Terry Halladay's note, from the back of the or commercial sales are. I'll look forward to contributing title page. “This the first of two catalogues devoted to to VNG in the future. listing a portion of our inventory of poetry and books by or about poets. It is neither a catalogue of highspots, nor Sincerely, a catalogue devoted to the standard field of collected or Jeff Stein. Route 3, Box 510, Harpers Ferry, WV 25410. approved poets. To the contrary, it is a somewhat heterogeneous sampling of the field of the great, the good, and, in a few unspecified cases, the admittedly awful Oh, WhAT a LovEly W a r : Jeff S t e In on ThE practitioners of the genre. Included herein are a few books which would never have seen the light of day in one G reen B eret M ureJer C ase of our regular catalogues, and their fate, if unsold from this venue, has yet to be finally decided. Without an open The whiff of political assassination is in the air again, as shop, we cannot seek relief in sidewalk bins or the dim President George Bush toys with the future of Saddam comer of a bookbarn. However, these are in the minority, Hussein. It seems as good time as any for him—and other and the greatest portion of the items that follow are Americans inclined to embrace “simple" solutions for worthy at least of readers, some titles have sought dim complex foreign affairs—to remember that old chestnut, comers on their own and have not appeared in one of our “What goes around comes around." catalogues in years (the blessing and the curse of the Twenty-two years ago this June, a computer is that such books are not irrevocably lost, intelligence unit in Viet Nam decided on a “simple" simply overlooked, or ignored or misplaced). Apparent solution to the discovery of a suspected North Viet double duplication of titles between the catalogue and our last agent in their ranks: after seeking approval from the CIA, literature catalogue (#109) is a consequence of multiple they took him out in a boat, wrapped him in chains and copies of both recent publications and older titles, or of lire rims, shot him in the head, and dumped him into the simple accident. This catalogue and its successor are South China Sea. summer experiments on our part in presenting what In that single act, one among many during more amounts to about 65% of our inventory, for better or than a decade in Viet Nam, their lives and careers were worse." Many, many war titles. I'm afraid that David ruined. Willson or I have already purchased all the items I would It could have been me. The so-called Green Beret recommend to you, but there are lots more. See the write­ Murder Case broke into the news when I was running my up of this firm in the in last issue, and get your own own military intelligence operation out of the French catalogues. colonial villa in Da Nang, a once-lovely port city on the

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South China Sea. Just when the Green Beret case Yet the Rheault case was troubling. The summary surfaced, I received evidence that my own agent was execution of the suspected spy seemed to symbolize the working for the other side. I pondered what to do. anarchy that had overtaken much of the conduct of the In the Green Beret case, the Army had announced war. While one part of the war was being fought above­ only that it had arrested Col. Robert Rheault, commander ground with and rules, the other was being of all Special Forces troops in Viet Nam, and seven of his carried out in the dark with terror and assassination. The men, on charges of first-degree murder of "a Vietnamese killing of Thai Khac Chuyen and the later sight of his civilian male." The press soon reported that the victim grieving widow and children begging for justice outside had been working for the Green in sensitive the United States Embassy rang the knell once again that espionage operations in Cambodia when a captured it was time to leave. photo showed him in the company of high-ranking North To others, however, the Army's prosecution of the Viet officers. His name was Thai Khac Chuyen. men seemed to symbolize the political limits Washington My own agent had just failed a polygraph examination had put on winning the war. If only the Green Berets dealing with his allegiances. When we asked him if he was could be encouraged to execute more spies, the argument “loyal to the government of South Vietnamese president went, the U.S. might win. Nguyen Van Thieu," his affirmative answer showed Both sides, in their own way, were right. And wrong. attempts at deception—lying. All this went through my mind as I pondered my own The Green Beret case made me wonder what I should spy’s fate in the late summer of 1969, as the Green Beret do if, in fact, my own spy was really working for the affair bloated into a spectacle in Saigon and the Army communists. Under the rules, the very existence of our announced a date for the courts martial of the eight men. operation was supposed to be kept secret from our South The Viet Cong, to whom assassination was old hat, were Vietnamese “allies"; turning him over for prosecution and having a propaganda holiday with the case. trial was impossible. Would I take him out in a boat and Would I kill my own spy, I wondered, if it turned out shoot him in the head with a silencer-equipped pistol, as he was working on the other side, if the lives of all my the Green Berets had just been charged with doing? other agents were thrown into jeopardy? My own As anyone who spent time in-country knows, it was commander, I was sure, would not want me to ask him nearly impossible to establish the truth of these matters what to do. in Viet Nam, where a kind of frontier justice prevailed. Luckily for me, the decision was aborted when I had been in Viet Nam long enough, and I spoke the further interrogations revealed that my agent had not language well enough, to know something about the “bounced" the polygraph because he was a communist, society and its history. I soon learned that the political but because he was a member of a right-wing political loyalties of most Viets were splintered along family, clan, movement conspiring against the Saigon government! religious, and multiple ideological faults. It had been Such were the perilous currents of Viet politics that a 22- foolhardy to try and fit Viet Nam into our Cold War box. year-old college dropout, as I was then, was supposed to It was impossible to define any Viet, with certainty, as fathom. “procommunist, "pro-Saigon," or “pro-U.S." (which, viewed The CLA, as it turned out, had no appetite for a Green from the perspective of Nguyen Van Thieu, might define Beret court-martial that would have put a spotlight on such a person as a traitor), unless they were in the agency's own record of assassination in Viet Nam (or and armed. That, in a nutshell, was the whole problem of anyplace else). It finally persuaded President Nixon to the war: defining who the enemy was. quash the charges. Revelations about the “excesses" of Sad to say, and it has been said many times, the U.S. the Phoenix Program and other seamy intelligence failed utterly at culling the communists from the crowd, activities were left for another day’s scandal. but that didn’t keep us from trying through such odious Like most veterans, I came home and tried to forget methods as the Phoenix Program. Meanwhile, with an about the war. The Green Beret case continued to haunt initial guilt that soon gave way to desperation, the U.S. me, however, with its beguiling paradox of defining moral bombed and strafed rural villages (concluding that the standards while in the service of illegal, government- murder of innocent civilians was worth the price of a few sponsored, activities. dead communists). The Cold War romance of the time, fed by James So it was that the arrest of Rheault and his men in Bond and other patriotic caricatures, held that July 1969, at the height of the war, sparked widespread assassination was a necessary and even glamorous curiosity and cynicism among us in the war zone. Why concomitant to the West's twilight struggle for democracy. would the Army arrest such high-ranking Green Berets That began to crack with the Viet Nam war, and was for executing one North Viet double agent? Wasn't that obliterated by Watergate. their job? For me, however, it was demolished by the publication The Army's straight-faced explanation that the of the in 1971. The classified study, defendants had violated the Geneva Convention and leaked by Pentagon consultant Daniel Ellsberg, revealed killed someone they weren't sure was an enemy spy rang that the main product of America's Cold War obsession hollow. The idea that the Green Berets should have with intrigue and deception in Viet Nam was self-hypnosis: turned their suspected spy over to the South Viets for a The government had talked itself into believing it knew trial was laughable. To U.S. intelligence in Viet Nam, the what the Viet Nam war was all about, and how to solve it— Saigon government was every bit as much the enemy as even as it discarded one losing strategy after another, lied the Viet Cong—often they were the same thing. to Congress, and ignored wiser heads.

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The Pentagon Papers, along with the Nixon want to cooperate with a book on the Green Beret affair. administration's invasion of Cambodia, finally spurred As we talked then and in subsequent conversations, me to get off the sidelines and I began writing articles on however, it became apparent that he had shed his hawk's U.S. intelligence operations in Viet Nam (despite the feathers long ago. security pledges 1 had signed never to discuss such “The Cold War was a waste, a fraud, and a hoax," he subjects). My first pieces were on the U.S. intelligence now said. He explained that his suspicions had grown connection to the Cambodian coup plotters who ousted over many years of personal study, but it was capped by Prince Sihanouk. a trip to the Soviet Union in 1988, where he led a Joint I soon enrolled in a graduate school with the goal of wilderness expedition of Viet Nam veterans and Soviet trying to find the roots of our appalling ignorance and veteransofAfghanistan. Duringdaysofmountain climbing folly in Indochina. On a more personal level. I was and nights around the fire, his conversations with the searching to understand how I had ended up carrying out once-feared Russian enemies convinced him that the such fruitless and morally questionable activities myself. Soviet threat had been deliberately overblown by the Not surprising, I found the answer in our corrosive Pentagon and the CIA. For their part, the Russians said addiction to secrecy and deception during the Cold War. the Red Army had drummed the threat of an American The case of the Green Berets was never far from my invasion into their heads, too. mind. In 1978 I saw a movie. Breaker Morant, that Reluctantly, over several more conversations and reignited my interest in the affair. It was a true tale of correspondence. Rheault finally agreed not to stand in Australian commandos executed for carrying out an the way of a book on the incident that had caused him. approved assassination while serving in the British Army and his beloved Special Forces, so much agony and pain. during the South African Boer War. The story seemed to Now, with their former commander's green light, the mirror the Green Beret case in its portrayal ofagovemment other defendants who I had located also agreed to talk. frame-up. I took a stab at getting the Green Beret Finally, in 1990, a thick brown package containing documents declassified, but the affair remained deeply nearly all the once-secret Army documents on the case buried in secret government archives. arrived in my mailbox. Heavily blacked out, the documents A fewyears later I learned that the character of Kurtz only hinted at the government's treachery in the case. It played by Marlon Brando in was would take scores more interviews and documents to modeled on Col. Rheault, theenigmatic formercommander establish that the CIA had indeed encouraged the Green of the 5th Special Forces Group and chief defendant in Berets to execute Thai Khac Chuyen—it was “the most the Green Beret case. Like Kurtz. Rheault was a product efficient solution," as one CIA agent admitted to an Army of Phillips Exeter Academy and West Point, fluent in detective. Yet when the Army initiated the prosecution, of French, with a Master's degree in international relations course, the CIA denied any responsibility for the killing. from the University of Paris. He was a paradigm of the The Army command, eager to rein in the rambunctious Kennedy-era Green Berets, in fact, an upper-class, brilliant Green Berets, went along with the lie. soldier as comfortable in a classroom as the straps of a The Green Beret case thus stands as a cautionary parachute, a guy who could kill in five languages while tale for those who would seek to get rid of Saddam discoursing on the virtues ofSunTzu. With theadvantage Hussein by the “simple solution" of assassination. Most of a post-Viet Nam war. post-Watergate hindsight. I saw likely, a military unit would be picked to carry out the hit him as a metaphor for the kind of hubris that led us into for the CLA. And when the inevitable flap comes, the the swamp o f Viet Nam. military guys will be hung out to dry. In the early 1980s, I took another stab at finding the The overwhelmingly positive reaction to A Murder in former defendants, but they had scattered to the winds, Wartime: The Untold Spy Story that Changed the and the word was that none of them would ever talk abou t Course o f the Vietnam War, has been gratifying, the case, especially the stoic Rheault, whose career and especially since it was a labor of love for my country, as marriage had been ruined by the affair. well as younger generations that maybe called on to cany Finally I heard he was running an Outward Bound out spurious operations in some far-off country for ill- program for troubled Viet Nam vets in Maine. 1 began defined goals. Young Americans especially deserve to writing letters, to which he politely, but firmly, responded know what our diddling around in the murky politics of. with no interest in a book. He had no interest in digging say, Iraq, is all about. (Certainly, by now, the hapless up an episode that reflected so badly on the U.S. Army, Kurds do.) he said, which he had loyally served for 26 years. He For me, the circle has already been closed. A year wanted to get on with his life, he said, and who could ago, halfway through my research. 1 learned that it was blame him? the Army's inept handling of the Green Beret case that I respected his reasoning. I told him. but 1 argued prompted Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers. that in the era o f Top Gun and Rambo. and an What a great surprise! It was a perfectly ironic ending not astonishing (to me) enthusiasm from liberals for the only to the book, but to my long, personal odyssey in this Contra War in Nicaragua, a generation that had hardly affair: Except for Ellsberg's stunning act. I probably been bom during the Viet Nam war needed to know what would not have become a journalist. And I would not, of counterinsurgency war was really all about. course, twenty years later, have written this book. Finally, one day in 1989. the telephone rang at my Even more stunning, if not for the Pentagon Papers, desk at UPI, where I was the foreign news features editor. Nixon might not have loosed “the plumbers" on Ellsberg It was Rheault. calling toexplain once again why he didn't and later, the Democrats at Watergate. The debacle that

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successful babe from a captive nation of the enemy." It's followed, of course, ruined the president, but it also all icky, in a way that only prudes can achieve. I’m trying opened the CIA’s sewers for all the world to see. to take it seriously. All because of the Green Beret case. Robert J. Serling, by the way, is Rod’s brother. The There is an easy lesson in this for George Bush, the men collaborated on TV dramas, according to the dust CIA, and of course, a future hit squad of Green Berets. jacket. Robert was UPI aviation news editor in DC. His Just remember. What goes around, comes around. first novel was The Left Seat, and two nonfiction books are The Electra Story and The Probable Cause. Halberstam's first novel was The Noblest Roman, and SwORdSMAN? his brief on the war. The Making of a Quagmire (1965) preceded the war novel, which is set entirely among the Item one: “In private she called him ’lover' and she was US advisers to an ARVN company, with action that one of those females who could simulate wild, runaway doesn't date precisely but seems pre-escalation. Serling’s passion so skillfully that her husband fancied himself a and Halberstam’s novels both have the author photo on sexual sw ord sm a n Item two: “In honor ofBeaupre who the back of the d.j. in the book club edition, with similar was acknowledged the resident sw ordsm anItalics mine. haircuts and very nearly the same , dark tie, and The first quote is from The President's Plane is Missing button-down shirt. Halberstam hasn't got a jacket on, (Doubleday & Company. Inc., Garden City, 1967, citation and Serling is jowly. from p. 25), the second published novel of Robert J. One Very Hot Day is a lean and deliberate novel Serling. The second is from 's second from the man who later settled in to writing big fat chunks published novel. One Very Hot Day (Houghton Mifflin, of bedtable reading. The characterization of the Vietnamese Boston, 1967, citation from p. 5, parts previously appeared lieutenant Thuong is as reasonable as that of the three- in The Saturday Evening Post). I have never once in my war captain, Beaupre. The officers and ARVNs lend a whole life heard a man refer to another as a swordsman, different tone than you find in Hasford et al. Halberstam in reference to what he does with his penis. I am foul- takes you on a big military operation in Viet Nam, rather mouthed, and have spent as much time as anybody than a patrol in what Philip Melling calls the Puritan talking about sex with young apes and old boys. I never Imagination because dragging in poor old Cotton Mather was a young professional man in the 1960s, still I do have is what Americanists do when they want people to think an ear for dead jargon, and this sounds to me like it never that what they write about is important. Serling clunks was alive. along the time-honored path to mediocrity in narrative, Is “swordsman" an Eagle Scout thing to say, giving a thumbnail sketch for each character on first something Halberstam used to convey the lifer ambiance appearance. But his book is readable, if say for instance he was not party to? It has a science-fiction nerd ring, like you can read Eugene O'Neil's stage directions, and the “Blast!" Who knows, maybe in New York and Washington President of the title has a son dead in Viet Nam. where in the 60s young reporters did keep track of who was the alternate history of the novel posits that a Korea-like getting any, and called him a “swordsman." In both settlement has been reached. Both novels are novels, lean young straight-arrow authors are trying to “procedurals", to borrow a term from crime-novel crit, as evoke fat, tough men in middle age who frequently have concerned with the workings of an organ of social order had their faces shoved in the shit. Does the bogus word as with individual character. betray an anxiety about sex or age or class? What anxiety The President’s Plane is Missing focuses on the exactly? wheels within wheels of national wire-service reporting. I don’t like printing questions but I have been The story is set in the DC bureau against a background thinking about this word for some time and it is a tough of nuclear brinksmanship and Cabinet antics, altogether nut. Has anyone ever heard it used in conversation? Is it a silly literary project that highlights the unlikeness of a word? From Harvard, maybe? It is not writing in praise of society’s machinery in the U.S. in a Hemingway word. Is it a Dan Wakefield word, some 1967. The President arranges to duck out of sight for a Midwest thing? We know from transcripts that Richard week to negotiate a mutual defense pact with the USSR Nixon did not talk this way. Is it a defunct convention of against the PRC, only to precipitate a crisis when his brief fashion in literary publishing, like printing “loving" stage double dies in a plane crash on Air Force One. The for the adjective “fucking?" Does “swordsman" stand in story plays on the memory of the Truman and LBJ for “cocksman", another word I have never heard aloud? successions, the JFK assassination, and the Cuban Why do two male journalists, contemporaries, both use missile crisis, without offering any organizing vision it in a novel in 1967? Was there a reactionary emphasis except allegiance to authority and Amurrican values. on gender roles at work, minting dirty words and jokes to One Very Hot Day, in contrast, looks I bet even better reinforce mythical verities? There is a lot of tittering in the now than when it appeared. It follows a lieutenant and Serling book about how newlywed husbands come to captain and their Vietnamese counterparts as they walk work late and leave early, and scenes of sexy talk from the their company-sized element of a battalion operation into ex-stewardess wife of the character who most closely an ambush. The procedural form mutes Halberstam’s resembles the author in career details. In his author’s shrill personal ambition and puts his fascination with note, Halberstam tells the world he just married “after a established institutions to good effect. He explains the tempest of red tape— the leading actress of the Polish U.S. Army and ARVN as reasonable men doing bad things theater," i.e. “1 legally fuck a hot and professionally for clear reasons, a vision more soberly frightening than

29 S u m m e r -F ail, 1972 ViET Na m G eneration V o Lum e 4 NuMbER 5-4 that of Catch-22 and so on. Okay, I've been responsible and given you a sense of the books. Now, my real The Grenading question. What was going on among men like Halberstam and Serling in the 1960s that led them confidently to put The ARVN Major beat the boy before the public such a counterfeit word, with such a with the captured rifle sling glancing proudly at us, load of embarrassing baggage, as “swordsman?" his American advisors.

An uninteresting event to everyone Into M e m o r y , B .D . T raH except the boy who silently cringed and shook from blow to blow.

Bernard Doss Trail died on January 1 of this year. He was In the madness of the war called “Ben" and signed his work “B.D. Trail." He was the today was near-to-normal. son of Col. Charles D. Trail, USAF (retired and deceased) There had been the usual dance to snipers, and Dr. Billie Marburger Trail. He was bom August 3, the suck-up in the chest, the dash across manioc fields, 1940 in Bryan, TX, and raised in Japan, England. the crack and whip of bullets Nebraska, and Texas. He earned a B.A. in English and a in time with running feet. U.S. Army commission at Texas A & M in May 1962. In seven years of service he reached the rank of Captain, Looking at the photos now, Military Intelligence. He served in Europe, and finished the sand is light like snow. two tours in the Republic of Viet Nam. In Quang Tin But then, the sand was griddle-hot Province he earned the Bronze Star and the Combat and hard to run across. Infantryman's Badge. He returned to A & M in 1969 for a Masters of Education degree. He worked at I.M. Terrell And there had been the usual harassment of the villagers, High School and Dunbar High School in Fort Worth. In the pig killings and gold tooth grinnings 1973, he joined the faculty at Tarrant County Junior of the chicken thieves, College where he taught literature and writing for 18 the stolen rice boiling in black cauldrons. years. He began publishing poetry in 1962. He published 200 poems, of about 300 known to exist. He is survived In our little corner of the war by his mother, two sisters (Charlotte and Anne), their the major beat the boy, children, and other family. we Americans smoked cigarettes, Trail’s work has earned him respect among those the Vietnamese village women cooked rice for ARVNs down on the ground who know vet poetry. His perspective is unusual: Trail spread out in casual circles. writes as the officer son of an officer, who meant to stay for a career but left the Army after Viet Nam service, who The stick grenade was lobbed out of a now teaches English Literature to college students who with all the surety and disguised slowness don’t care for it. Sadly, he died before seeing a book into of a softball. And it seemed to move towards print to establish his reputation and leave a durable a cookfire with measured, casual directness. resource for future readers. But Trail was so fortunate as A village woman heavy in her pregnancy to have a friend, Docke Burke, who has assembled a caught the rolling blast of the grenade. Complete Poems on disk, with a bibliography of The fragments plunged into the soldiers. publications. Vietnam Generation will publish the For her the blast was a sonic scalpel bibliography, with a biographical note, some critical slicing, filleting, cutting essays, and a brief selection of poems, when we can afford deep, deep into her belly. to. We are arranging to have disks and typescripts of Burke's compilation placed on deposit at John Baky's Something clicks in time of crisis, collection of Imaginative Representations of the Viet a switch to surreal slow motion. We Americans froze in place Nam War at La Salle University, and at David Willson's while the Vietnamese, collection at the Holman Library, Green River Community as if coming up for air, College, Auburn, WA. Baky will see to it that the archive floundered and fumbled. is cited in all the relevant indices and databases. A note by Trail to David Willson dated 22 Jan 91, Still half-frame, the image slowed accompanying a selection of his work, points to one poem to show her baby, from the chapbook Flesh Wounds (Samisdat, Volume her corded baby, 54, #4.216th release, ISSN 0226-840x, Box 129, Richford, easeooze VT, 05476) as “my best war poem." Here it is, one last from her fish-gutted belly and fall into the fire. postcard from a community college at the edge of a SAC base, from a professor who used to teach ARVNs: The madness was not just the fetus in the fire. No, that was just a novclty-of-horrors. to men who had seen minings and other mutilations.

? 0 Summer-FaU, 1992 ViET Na m G eneration VoIume 4 NuiVlbER >-4

Marita Sturken: Sears' article: and “Peace Studies, the The madness was the mother was still alive. Gulf War, and Peace" by Carolyn M. Stephenson. My gut Split from throat to crotch, reaction to calling wars “postmodern" is that it's just the mother was alive and more confusing words, that war should be referred to as screaming screaming screaming bluntly as possible, but I suppose that is just a Modernist I didn’t shoot her and I don't know why. stance I assume when appropriate, an unmistakably No one shot her. And she kept on postmodern procedure. Sigh. God knows, I don't have to screaming screaming screaming. get my life approved by any English Department, so I should keep my mouth shut and let the grownups do Dragged over the white-hot sand what they have to do to get over. Looks like a great issue on a red-wet poncho, of a good journal. Sorry, no contact information on the she screamed for two hours on the landing zone. xerox Ben gave me. She died before a helicopter came.

I died back at the fire. V iet Na m ANd V ietnamese on t He N et

Many of the items in the Announcements, Notices, and JournaI of LlRbAN ANd C l I turaI Srudies Reports came to us through our subscribers’ active participation in VWAR-L, a computer bulletin board Ben Kiernan passed along a xerox of the TOC of Vol. 2, No. devoted to the issues related to the U.S. war in Viet Nam. 1, 1991 of this journal, andofpp. 115-117, Laurie Sears’ Here is a report from computer scientist John Sutherland, “Authoritative Voices and the Vietnam Experience: on bulletin boards and similar electronic venues for Teaching About Vietnam During the Gulf War." Sears discussion of topics relating to Viet Nam and Viets. This teaches a course about “the Vietnam wars" in the history is not an explanation for the uninitiated, but an address department at the University of Washington. Over two book for those already involved in computer-linked years, course titles have included “Colonial Backgrounds discussions. If you want to get involved, talk to the of the Vietnam War," “Introduction to Modern Southeast computer support people at your university. Ifyou’re not Asian History," “The Vietnam Wars," and, with Susan associated with a university, call Kali and ask her how Jeffords of the English Department, "Images of the Vietnam she does it. For more information on VWAR-L, see the War in History, Literature, and Film." Sears has also Publisher's Statement in this issue. lectured to high school students and teachers. She has proposed a new course on war and society. Go, Dr. Sears. VIet Na m O n-LIne: A LisT of EIectro n Ic B uIIetIn Her teaching sounds good, her interests are alive, and B oARds ANd R esources she quotes “novelist and Vietnam veteran David Willson." She doesn't give his titles and publisher, though (REMF Diary and REMF Returns, Black Heron Press: regular CS-TEXT column, Vietnam Generation), and there must be a Address: nguyen6@huse. harvard.edu more authoritative source than David for the useful Request: [email protected] nugget that “90% of those who went to Vietnam in the various branches of the US military were not involved in Explanation: Cs-text is a mailing list for Vietnamese, combat." I don't know where that source is, but David who are working on producing a text book a complete could have told her. Picky, picky—it's a good essay, overview of Computer Science in both Vietnamese & maybe we could reprint it. I see that the Journal reprinted English, for Computer Science majors, geared toward George Lakoff s "Metaphor and War: the Metaphor System high school level reading. Used to Justify War in theGulF from PeaceNet, as we did Questions to: [email protected] (Vol. 3 No. 3). Other articles from this issue: "The Gulf Crisis" and “The New World Order" by Noam Chomsky. A SOC.CULTURE. VIETNAMESE section called “Theorizing Postmodern War" includes Address: [email protected] “Postmodern Wars: Phallomilitary Spectacles in the DTO“; [email protected] “On Wimps" by Donna Haraway; “Nuclear War, the Gulf Request: Contact your system administrator for War, and the Disappearing Body" by Hugh Gusterson; access to USENET or else subscribe to the VietNet “Bring the Tropes Home: (Academic) Life During Wartime" Mailing List. by Mark Driscoll: Lakoffs piece and “The Imperialist Subject" by Judith Butler. A section called “Teaching Explanation: soc.culture.vietnamese is a newsgroup Postmodern Peace" includes: “Notes on the Gulf War, on SCV/USENET, accessible from intemet/uuep. Its Racism, and African-American Social Thought: purpose is to discuss subjects related specifically to Viet Ramifications forTeaching" by John Brown Childs; “Men Nam and its culture. It is a public newsgroup that is read/ in Suits" by Carol Becker: “Political Pedagogy and posted worldwide by anyone with access to USENET. The Democratic Discourse: Bringing War and Peace into the newsgroup soc.culture.vietnamese is sometimes Classroom" by Greg Reinarman: “Countering the abbreviated as SCV in postings. Charterand the frequently Disempowerment of War" by Giovanna Di Chiro and asked questions are posted monthly. Questions to: [email protected] or [email protected]

>1 S u m m e r -F a II, 1992 ViET Naim G eneration VolllME 4 NuiVlbER >-4

Vietnamese character codes between VN software houses TRICHLOR-TALK and users. Viet-std has just released VISCII standard Address: [email protected] April 1992. Request: [email protected] Contacts: [email protected]

Explanation: TriChlor is a group of volunteers whose VN-ATNP common interests are providing free utilities, codes, Address: [email protected] libraries for use with the , and to Request: [email protected] integrate Vietnamese language to current computing environments. Trichlor’s members are Vietnamese Explanation: This is “A(n Tu.c No’i Phe’t". It is a software developers working all over the world to develop mailing list for people to talk about whatever “No'i Phe't”. public domain Vietnamese software with Vietnamese The conversation can get rather racy, risque at time, characters set on X-window, Unix, DOS, MAC, Microsoft please use your own discretion in joining. Window 3.1, Sunviews, etc... Please join trichlor ifyou are Question to: [email protected] working on any type of software. Questions to: [email protected] VN-SINGLES Address: [email protected] VIETNAM Request: [email protected] Address: [email protected] Request: [email protected] Explanation: VN-Singles is a mailing list for Vietnamese singles, professionals or students. Although Explanation: I am looking for a charter for this group. there are a number of married people in it. The focus is Questions to: [email protected] on issues relating to the Vietnamese singles life (dating, , marriage custom, loneliness etc). It VIET-NET is small and well focused on these kind of topics. Address: [email protected] (East Question to: [email protected] USA) [email protected] (Southwest USA) VN-SXNET [email protected] (West USA) Address: [email protected] [email protected] (West USA) Request: [email protected] [email protected] (West USA) [email protected] (Southwest USA) Explanation: This list was originally created because Request: [email protected] (with SIGN- of the sexually explicit jokes and talks being posted to ON in subject) VietNet. Many people complained and flame wars started [email protected] (with SIGN-ON in subject) because of this. So the list was created as a place for people to post and share these kinds of jokes or stories/ Explanation: Viet-net was the predecessor of talks whatever they want. Lately, a lot of this kind of soc.culture.Vietnamese. Viet-net had served over 800 conversation has migrated to vn-atnp. Vietnamese overseas worldwide for over 4 years, with 4 Question to: [email protected] servers at mit.edu, bu.edu, uci.edu, and sun.com. On Mar5, 1992at 1 am EST, Viet-net was replaced by a more All this infomration came from Tua’n (John] Sutherland, powerful network for Vietnamese to connect: of Seattle, Washington. E-mail address: Soc.Culture.Vietnamese on USENET. JFT%NCCIBM [email protected] Viet-net is now a network of mail links between mail<->SCV/USENET for netters without access to USENET. Mail from SCV are forward directly to your mail V V A W 25 t N R eunion: JAck M a IIo r y R epo r t s box. Ifyou have access to USENET, Do NOT use Viet-net, else subscribe to Viet-net to receive mail from SCV. Contacts: [email protected] Mike Phelan and I headed north up the Pacific Coast Highway. We were on our way to San Francisco VIET-STD International to catch a flight to Houston, and make a Address: [email protected] connection to La Guardia. Our destination: the 25th Request: [email protected] anniversary of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. As we passed Ano Nuevo, I looked out to sea and saw a Cobra Explanation: Viet-std is a mailing list for computer helicopter paralleling our route. When I mentioned it to professionals who are trying to ensure that new world Mike, he said he hadn't seen it—but it was there, it really wide standards efforts take into account the needs of the was. Vietnamese language and customs. Viet-std have been For most Americans, helicopters are simply a strange very active in character set standardization efforts and in form of aircraft. For Vietnam vets they either whisper, or creating a "locale" for the ANSI/ISO C and IEEE/ISO shout: logbird, medevac, gunship. pink team, hot lz, big POSIX standards. It also works to standardize all orange tracers going down, big green tracers going up... Like every chopper I've seen or heard in over 20 years, the

52 S u m m e r -Fa II, 1992 V iet Naivi G eneration V oIum e 4 NuiVlbcR ?-4

it is the disappearance of the war as a well-known Cobra took me back to that place where green was the checkpoint that made us nervous about coming together predominant color: green grass and jungle, green uniforms with people we had known during those constantly and tents, green tanks and ACAVS. Even corpses seemed conscious, angry days. Would they still be what we had to pass through a green stage on their way to being not once all been—would they have that focused rage, that much more than dark stains on the ground. energy, that bitterness, that consumed us and gave us 1 thought about Vietnam every day when I was a full­ the purpose to survive those brutal years? And if they time W A W organizer. Now it comes to mind perhaps once were still so consumed, what would that say to and about a week. What’s the difference between who I am now, and us, who now live our lives in at least a semblance of who I was then? Am I now “normal," or at least a “normal" normalcy: we go to work, we raise our families, we drag W A W type, whatever the hell that means? I came ourselves to the polls to choose between tweedledum and reluctantly to the reunion, in search of an understanding tweedledee, we take our children to the latest round of of what normal might mean. I hoped to see myself in the demonstrations for peace here, and justice there, and context of the political vets I once knew. leave early to get the laundry done. I heard about the reunion two weeks before it I think much of the apprehension that Mike and I happened. I immediately got in touch with my old W A W felt about going to this reunion paralleled our feelings partner, Mike Phelan, who lives in the next town. Mike about our W A W friend RK, who was so fucked up by the and I had been W AW regional coordinators for Washington, DC during the '71 V-vet’s demonstrations war (twoyears as a teenage medic with the 101 st). We love (DeweyCanyon III), Mayday, and other political actions of R dearly but he makes us feel extremely uncomfortable. the early 70’s. We both burned out by '72, before the In fact, he drives us fucking nuts much of the time, but we would never cut him off— he'll always be a part of our Miami Convention actions. I was peripherally involved with W A W during the mid-70’s, but had been out of Vietnam war experience. Mike and I discussed this throughout the reunion, without resolution. Do we suffer contact for about 15 years. some kind of survivor's guilt vis-a-vis R? Do less-fucked- Mike and I were both very doubtful about attending: up vets in general feel this way about the truly fucked- I pushed, and Mike resisted: then Mike pushed, and 1 resisted. With some prodding from KaliTal, support from up? It's not just “there but for the grace of god or luck go Peg, my wife, and free frequent flier tickets from Mike's I," but a very strong unease in his presence. We can brother, we talked ourselves into it. Kali and 1 then went appreciate where he's coming from, what he's been to work on Dan Okada and voodoo chile—both even more through, but cannot share it fully—does it make us feel nervous about going than Mike and I. All the less a v-vet than he? Is this a common feeling of those who communication between K a li, Dan, voodoo, and myself saw less combat about those who saw more? Do we worry was by e-mail: although Dan and voodoo are colleagues that R resents us, thinks less of us? I don't think R feels at the same university. Kali and 1 had never met them, or that way, but does the possibility bother us? 1 don't know, each other, in person. (E-mail is a unique form of but Mike and I did worry that we were going back to a communication: there are simply no physical constructs reunion of RK's. on which to build assumptions about people. One of my RK called last night. He missed the reunion because major motivations in going was to meet these folks, who he is back in the hospital again, and the doctors fear some seemed like such kindred spirits when their messages form of chronic (lung) transplant rejection. Got me to appeared on my terminal.) It was comforting to know that thinking again: is it R's death, always rumored to be or other old W AW members were equally reluctant to truly potentially imminent, that bothers? I came out of attend this event. Vietnam with a strangely dichotomous attitude about Everyone I questioned at the reunion recounted death: I was aware of the fragility of human life (more similar strong hesitation to attend. Some of this is specifically, that the human body is so easily separated common to all reunion situations, I gather, but I think into a few large, or many small, pieces). At the same time, something special was happening here. The war used to back in the States, I felt invulnerable for many years— permeate our lives . It was our daily reality for years after what else could life do to me that hadn't already been the war—it was a reference point by which we evaluated done, or nearly done? Now, in middle age, I have lost that every issue, defined every value, reacted to every new invulnerability in the face of such mundane things as acquaintance. For many it was an unconscious process, high cholesterol and marginally high blood pressure. or a process carried on closeted, hidden from all others: Does R remind me that any of us can go anytime—and for W A W folks, luckily, I think, it was a conscious and certainly will go, eventually? Is it R's mortality that Mike public process. If I may borrow an idiom, we came out and I are bothered by? early. So, we spent the night with Mike's brother in Vietnam no longer permeates my life at the surface, Duchess County, and took the train down from upstate daily level. It’s not gone—and I'm glad, in many ways, that into Manhattan. A toddler I never saw was crying behind it's still there—and I'll come back to ways that the war me in the car, with a sound that identified him as just continues to reappear, the way shrapnel can continue to Devlin's age—somewhere around 20 months. It made me pop from the skin, or malaria reoccur unexpectedly years think of Devlin at home with Peggy, and it brought tears later. to my eyes. It also made me think of kids and wars, and But I no longer put my W A W pin on my shirt in the how in the US many people think of war solely as a morning, or wear my jungle fatigue jacket daily. Perhaps military phenomenon—failing to see that all wars engage civilians, and children, in ways that fortunate Americans Summer-FaLI, 1992 V iet Nam G eneration VoIume 4 NuivibcR 5-4

me, and I didn’t know what else to do, and because I didn’t have not understood since the Civil War, if then. Later want to go to LBJ. And more bad things happened, and that weekend I saw very explicit news footage of the I came home in early May of 1970 as the Cav rolled into mortar attack on the Bosnian city market: people lying in Cambodia, and my family asked me about the war, and enormous pools of blood, limbs missing—things I have I said. I think, “It sucks." And a day or two later I spoke seen, but can no longer see vividly: both a blessing and against the war at my old high school's post-Kent State/ a curse—I am glad I cannot see. but fear forgetting. Cambodian invasion demonstration: and six months or War is disastrous in an infinite variety of ways: so later 1 was a full-time organizer for WA W . I have heard simply typing that statement is so weak a representation others say that W A W saved their lives, and I suspect of the horror of war as to make me cringe. It is impossible, that's true for me: only among people who shared a on paper or film, to let the reader or viewer know what war similar degree of rage, bitterness, sorrow, guilt, and is "really" like. But 1 must at least try. 1 owe it to my son, heartfelt opposition to the war could I have worked out to someday tell him the horrible things my father never those feelings and come all the way home. It was W A W told me, in the hopes that he will never be able to tell his and our struggle against the war that brought me home, sons and daughters those things. I must tell him about not that afterthought of a parade in Washington, or tips RK, about how a boy was sent to save other boys’ lives in of the hat to veterans after the Gulf War. a real war, at an age where they were but a few years from These are the things 1 must tell my son. And I must “bang, yer dead" in children's games. About how that real tell him that wars are only ever over for those who didn’t war destroyed R's life, although he kept on living and is go to war, or have war come to them. For those who saw trying to build a new life. war, it goes on, and on, and on. It fades, like old film I must tell him about the day of the dead girl and the footage, but it never ends. We can live with it, most of us, dead ARVN. Leaving our base camp in a jeep, headed into but we will never live without it. Quon Loi during the time that I was the 11th AC R's I will tell my son these things. I told these things to liaison to the Vietnamese District Chief. On a side road other children, to high school and college kids when immediately outside our camp, I noticed several children— W A W was speaking in schools during the war. And 1 told I couldn’t tell what was happening, but something was these stories to other vets, years ago when they were “wrong" enough to turn down the road to check it out. almost our sole form of conversation. But these are not When we got there, we found some kids standing around easy things to tell, and I no longer tell them readily. a young girl, perhaps 8-10 years old, lying under a tree. Perhaps another reason so many of us approached the She appeared unharmed, but was quite dead. 1 checked reunion cautiously is that we wanted neither to listen to her out, and found a single, fingernail-sized hole in the nor tell these stories again. center of her chest. She must have died instantly, as So Mike and I got to the city, and walked from Grand there was little blood. My interpreter quizzed the kids, Central down to the hotel, which I had understood to be and told me that she had been up in a tree, breaking off somewhere in lower Manhattan. Along the way we stopped dead limbs for firewood. An explosion knocked her from in a liquor store and sprang for a bottle of Glenlivet (livin’ the tree and killed her. high in the Big Apple). In the liquor store a singularly The local VC had placed a grenade in the tree, with decked-out blackdude (leather shorts, vest, rollerskates, a wire across the road intended to catch the radio multiple earrings) noticed my W A W patch and asked if antennae of any military vehicle passing below and pull I was a V-vet. He said he was also, and at my question said the pin. She got there first. One of those meaningless, he had been with the 11th ACR—my old unit. Now, I random deaths—the VC hadn't meant to kill her, but she haven’t run into more than half a dozen people from the was dead just the same. She wasn’t the first wounded Blackhorse since leaving Vietnam, and running into this child I had seen—I spent a lot of time running MedCAPs guy on the way to the reunion was a little like having that in the villages—but she was the first dead child. Cobra accompany us up the coast. Later that day, coming back from Quon Loi, we Given the reasonable room costs at someplace pulled up behind a long line of stopped vehicles. Not called the Vista Hotel where W A W had booked a block of caring much to sit there exposed, we pulled up to the rooms, Mike and I had been afraid that we were headed head of the column and found more random death. One for some sleaze-ball dive (anyone remember the DeSoto of our cowboy deuce-and-a-half drivers, renowned for Hotel, outside Ft. Jackson?). W A W was never a high- their speed and carefree ways driving through villes, had rolling operation in terms of the organization's budget or hit an ARVN pedestrian on the side of the road. He, also, the finances of its members. Sleeping bags on the floors was quite dead. Another meaningless, random death— of church basements and sympathizers’ living rooms the American hadn’t meant to kill him, but he was dead were the usual accommoclations for W A W events. just the same. In fact, that had been an option for the reunion, but 1 must tell my son that day kind of summed up the Mike and I swore that we had put our floor-sleeping days warforme. People, kids, dead for piss-poor reasons. None behind us, and that our hard-won credit ratings would of the rhetoric, none of the justifications, whether from treat us to our own room in the Vista, and we'd just hope Kennedy, Johnson, or Nixon, added up to a pile of shit in the toilet flushed. But the Vista Hotel turns out to be the the face of those two dead Vietnamese, or the dead and World Trade Center hotel! If someone had told me in 1972 wounded Americans I saw. that we'd be holding a reunion at the World Trade Center But the war went on. for me and everybody else. And in 20 years. I’d have told them to lay off the Thai stick for 1 continued to do my part, because people depended on a while. This should have been my first hint that we were

54 Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIume 4 NuivibcR 5-4 no longer what we once were: not only Mike and I, but between those of different ages and genders can be hard many or most of the vets attending had VisaMaster- to come by, in these troubled times. AmExDiscover cards in their wallets, families, pets, All in all, it was a very pleasant, normal evening. mortgages, etc. All of these were pretty rare, 20 years ago. Much to our relief, tiger-stripe cammies were almost not I said to Mike as we approached the towering glass to be seen (Mike, myself, and other v-vets we talked to are and steel hotel that this must be an FBI sting operation— all amused by an interesting phenomenon: to hear some they were going to clamp on the cuffs as we registered: folks strut their stuff, Vietnam was occupied by about 2 “This case has been 20 years in the making, and we’ve got million recon marines and 2 million green berets at any you commie motherfuckers now!" But no: a 21st floor given time during the war). In fact, at the W A W reunion room with an enormous window overlooking the Hudson: there were more tweed sport jackets than camouflaged a staggering view. Hospitality suite with free drinks in the fatigues. pm, and free breakfast in the am. It later occurred to me So we sat, and drank—some cokes, some booze: that this was the only W A W event I'd ever been to where and some smoked—a lot of cigarettes (come on, you guys, no one was concerned about who might be a cop, about give it up—don't die for R.J. Reynolds!), and a fa r smaller who the informers or undercover agents might be. We had amount of pot than would have been the case 20 years once spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about ago. Lot of folks got pleasantly high, and no one got whether or not so-and-so was a cop: most of those we trashed as far as 1 could tell, but I left around midnight, suspected weren’t, some of those unsuspected were. It as I saw a long weekend in sight. Joe Bangert was there, don’t mean nothin’ anymore. indistinguishable from the Joe of old except that his Friday night there was a reception (read parly) beard was gone, and he was accompanied by his 8-or so upstairs in a local “Irish" bar—a place much more like year old son, who was a real trooper about putting up with what we had expected: dark, noisy, smoky. About 60 us boring old folks. And we talked, and talked, and people there: v-vets, families, and an element unfamiliar talked. to me: non-veteran academics, interested in the war and And you know what? We are a really normal, decent, the era from both personal and intellectual perspectives. sane, pleasant, likable group of people. A paucity of war Among these were Lydia Fish, a folklorist: and Dan Duffy stories, even of old W A W stories, at least where I sat. and Kali Tal, editors of Viet Nam Generation. I had read Most of the talk was about now, and where we were, what my first issue on the plane, and found it a fascinating we were doing, politically and personally: our spouses, compendium of non-fiction, fiction, poetry, and what our divorces, our children. I don’t know why this should might even be referred to as chit-chat about a wide range seem surprising. But while we were immersed in W AW , of Vietnam-related issues. as much as we loved each other for what we had been I was looking forward to meeting Kali, whose e-mail through, and although many of us worked together daily, self-description as a redhead with numerous earrings, a we seldom if ever had the time and sense of ease to sit tattoo on her left shoulder, looking like a body builder down and appreciate each other as friends. And we now gone to seed suggested that I would have no trouble have the opportunity to do this, and it’s just lovely. recognizing her. And that was the case: shortly after The next morning, some a bit the worse for wear, we arriving, as Mike and I drank our scotches (another break shambled rather than marched on down to the NY with tradition: the old days were days of pot and Rolling Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. After some milling around Rock) and scanned the room for familiar faces. Kali was at the memorial, during which I met Dan Okada and quietly evident at a table with several other folks. While voodoo chile, a memorial ceremony took place, involving her self-description had included a little about her statements by Barry Romo, Dave Dellinger. Dan Berrigan, background and the context of her interest in the Vietnam and others. Folks carried flags of the various countries in war and Vietnam vets, I was still curious as to why a 32- which the US has been recently involved; along with year old woman would be devoting a substantial portion placards giving casualty figures. We then marched to of her life to understanding an era and a group of people Memorial Park: someone passed out cadences to chant, so seemingly irrelevant to her (teaching university students but it just wasn't that kind of an occasion. Again, folks can produce the impression that, to anyone under 30, were just talking amongst themselves. irrelevance is anything that happened last year, toanyone The scene at Memorial Park was very like the “Old other than themselves). I will let Kali explicate her Days." Speakers spoke, singers sang—Country Joe interests herself: suffice it to say that it is undoubtedly McDonald very well, as usual, others not so well, as ageist and sexist to be surprised that a young woman usual. Mike moved through the crowd, stopping and might be interested in Vietnam, in the widest possible chatting: I hung around the outside of the crowd where sense. Talking to Kali, I quickly realized that the motives I have always been most comfortable, talking to Dan for her interests were irrelevant: what was relevant was Okada, voodoo chile. Kali, her intern Ben, Dan Duffy, and the content. She has thought long and hard about the Lydia: all of us academic V-vets or students of the era— war, what it did to people and what it means to people. participant observers, rather than full participants, in There is no romanticizing of veterans, and in fact she many ways. wields a sensitive bullshit detector, which she is kind Later that afternoon it was off to a local church for enough to characterize as “an interest in myth." Our lunch, scheduled for 2:00, preceded by 25 toasts which conversation unfolded over the weekend, as we both turned into 25 speeches. The Vietnamese Ambassador to dropped the defenses necessary when two people, formerly the UN spoke so long that I thought we’d have to call in known only by e-mail addresses, meet in person. Trust an air strike to get him off the podium. I'm afraid I tuned

>5 S u m m e r -F a U, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration V o Iu m e 4 NuivibER 5-4

out—as at the Memorial Park, I've just heard too damn what it was doing for me was providing an important many speeches. I'd rather talk with than be talked at. reality check. We have been so bombarded by media Folks towards the backdid begin to talk among themselves, visions of Vietnam vets, and our images of our own although various school-teacher types up front frequently “vetness" have undergone so many changes over the turned and “shushed" the crowd sternly. It was getting on years, that it can be hard for us to know who “we" as a to about 3:30 when a popular movement in the direction group are, and what “we" are really like. This is especially of the kitchen started, and soon enough turkey, roast true for people like Mike and me, who have been separated beef, and other items had been liberated to make sitting from other W A W folks for so long. This event allows us through the speeches bearable. Saturday evening saw to check ourselves against each other, to remind ourselves the “Concert," which actually meant Country Joe and a who we are, what we are really like; to tell ourselves that couple of other groups playing at a bar in Soho. I thought we made it, we are sane survivors, as normal as one can at first that W A W had taken the place over for the be given our experiences. It is a chance to check myth evening, but as the regular crowd began to arrive around against reality, to the degree that is possible, to make midnight. I realized that it was just an age-distribution ourselves comfortable with the parts of the myth that phenomenon, with the middle-aged vets arriving and approximate reality, and reject what we feel to be “false" mostly leaving early, and the younger folks then taking myth. over. It was a pleasant time, but again with a bit too much One evening, while taping my reactions to the day’s smoke and noise for me. Very difficult to talk to folks, and events, I expressed my inability, perhaps reluctance, to Kali, Ben, and I tottered back to the hotel around pick it all apart and analyze what it all meant. I knew I felt midnight, with Mike following later. comfortable with everyone at the reunion. They were “my" The next morninga number of topics were scheduled folks, folks who, not matter how alienated, had once for discussion in a local church. This could have been the understood the world like I did. and as no one else seemed occasion for some interesting introspection about where to. And now, they are still “my" people. We were a crazy we've been and where we're going (a bit like this piece, crew then, desperate in our own way, and we are now come to think of it). Skip Delano had set up a display of such a settled bunch of people, most of us. Listening to FBI files about W A W , retrieved under the FOIA. I was my voice on the tape, there is a sense of surprise that we amused to see my name crop up in a newspaper article, were having such a good time, that people seemed so quoting me on the aims of the veterans' demonstration in normal, and happy. And I went on to say. “I guess we’ve DC in 1971 (Dewey Canyon III). I had gotten my own file earned it. We earned it in Vietnam, we've been paying many years ago, and had been amused to see that much dues ever since... and, what the hell do you pay dues for of the "Confidential," 400-page file consisted of copies of unless you get something out of it, get something in newspaper articles, press releases, leaflets, and other return? And maybe that's it—we're happy now because publicly distributed material. When I think of the millions we have paid for it—we did our duty as the country of dollars wasted in accumulating that stuff... It's apparent defined it in Vietnam, and we did our duty as we defined that it's the process of collecting it that's important, that's it afterwards, and maybe that should buy us a bit of intended to frighten people into inactivity: the “intelligence" happiness. itself is meaningless. Folks were a bit worse the wear from the previous Jack Mallory, 236 Dickens Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, evening: it was pouring rain, and people were moving E-mail: [email protected] slowly. A lot of people had already left for home. The seating of people in pews didn't contribute to discussion: what we ended up with was Quaker meeting style testimony. A number of people spoke about the need for continued work for peace and justice: but Jack McCloskey reminded us that we needn't let that work consume our lives completely, that we have as much right to a normal life as anyone. I was reminded of demonstrations when CONQRATLllATiONS TO JohN BAky the cry, “Vets to the front" would go up as confrontation with the cops neared, and veterans were expected once John Baky, Viet Nam Generation Advisory Board again to make a sacrifice others were unwilling to make. Member, has been promoted to Director of Library Services We did it, then, but I don't think we’re willing to keep at La Salle University. John has been the driving force doing it. Much of this was very moving, but the “theme" behind La Salle's superb special collection. Imaginative of the reunion for many of us had been conversation: the Representations of the Viet Nam War. testimony style didn't fit the mood, and the church pew Congratulations. John, and best wishes in your new didn't fit my butt. About midday, the “'Original' Stage position. We value your contribution to the field. Door Deli" across the street overcame our dedication, and Mike, Kali, Ben and I ran through the rain toward the pastrami. After lunch, we parted ways rather quickly. There was no need for any extended farewell, as we knew we'd be in touch. As mundane as all of the foregoing seems,

56 Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIume 4 NuivibcR 5-4

hidden an extraordinary nature. How else to explain the Features perfect harmony existing between himself and his environment, a final symbol of his capacity to live so deeply and so freely. But after only three sentences had ChiN B o L a m M uoi (IMne D ow n M a Ices T en) uttered forth from his lovely smiling mouth, this first impression quickly evaporated. He was one ofa countless A story by Pham Thi Hoai number of fortunate young men who live an unexamined Translated by Peter Zinoman, History, Cornell University life, not because of some conscious principle, but simply due to circumstance—frivolity as a habit, as a way oflife; The first man in my unhappy life was slender and gentle frivolous in all details and only details concerned him. His with an honest face. His was an honesty easy to find at frivolity manifested itself in the care he took in striking a any time, mainly in people who have lived continually and relaxed pose, and in the attention he devoted to without interruptions in a sheltered environment. From celebrations, feasting, and to appearing knowledgeable; an ordinary and uneventful childhood, to a college life, this all in the context of a larger existence which was not really no more than an extension of high school, and on at all frivolous, but serious and substantial. At a certain to years as a government employed technician, he age, those as extroverted and unaffected as he sink into displayed diligence, trustworthiness, and benevolence. It the cloudy chaos of life’s problems. But, nevertheless, he seemed that his was a kind of innate goodness, god-given was a person who brought me many pleasant hours, and protected. It seemed that he had always been righteous almost my happiest ever. I learned several important and good, but in a modest way, throughout a life untouched things from him. namely the discovery that I have a body by self-doubt. I often thought of his goodness as a small and my body has a voice, a voice initially timid, then thimble of fire, incapable of contributing much heat to the passionate, sometimes daring and profane, and world, but occasionally heart-warming, though only in a progressively harder to please. He was the first man to symbolic way. And everyone, especially me, would strain show me that I am a woman, and for long after, how long towards this warmth; this effort eventually becoming a I'm not sure, I am still grateful to this ordinary man. Life habit and later on, a moral imperative. Actually. I could will certainly be impoverished if lacking such merry and perhaps have lived the kind of life most suitable for a superficial men. Furthermore, he loved good food, and woman by his side, in an apartment somewhere with that that truly is a worthwhile quality. small flame. I'd give birth to well-fathered children, and sit nightly clutching a ball of colorful wool, knitting Man number three was around for less than a week but colorful clothes, oblivious to self-doubt. Moreover, 1 would made me the most miserable. He was extremely handsome, never fear unfaithfulness from him as he could barely so handsome that expressions of envy clogged up the conceptualize adultery. But then, I was too young, and 1 throats of those who met him. I immediately forgot who saw him as a sort of precious chessman, fortunate to have I was, and experienced my first near-death state. After been moved by some unseen hand toward the safe that I remained struck by a sensation both dangerous squares and away from the violent battles. It seemed he and seductive. This feeling stayed with me throughout would remain like this until a natural death finally seized the remainder of my life, flooding and overwhelming him—and of course he’d remain honest, even in death. At smaller emotions, causing them to shrink and shrivel up. that time, I considered my own birth some kind of cruel Recovery would demand a very large dose of optimism, prank. I underestimated the size of his thimble of fire and and an ability to adjust to new extremes. I knew that he failed to realize that his conventional honesty was no less was an inarticulate dullard, useless except for giving believable than other things in life. Lacking skepticism, pleasure to the eyes, over-reliant on his unusually how could he understand science, art or religion and in gorgeous appearance and frightfully uninteresting. But short, how could he understand love, that which I in his presence, I completely forgot and forgave everything, considered the most fundamental craving for a person even though he was genuinely uncouth, foul, and cruel. such as myself. I grew dissatisfied because he was too After one week, I abandoned my urge not to indulge my respectable and secure with his own respectability. self-pity and cried like a child whose toy has been stolen before she gets a chance to play with it. He would The second man was frivolous and merry, an urban child continue to be so gorgeous and useless for his entire life, who had yet to go through a period of spiritual crisis and I, throughout my life, would flee from the desire to characteristic of civilized society. He was crazy about give myself to him, tormented by the absurdity of god and music from Beethoven to the Beatles, possessed a good myself even more. That affair was perhaps my only singing voice, but couldn't bear to practice. He also loved experience with true platonic love, especially the time I soccer and had a decent kicking foot but no concentration timidly ran my fingers through tufts of hair so beautiful for workouts. Generally speaking, he had no concentration they seemed not to belong to him, and then abruptly for anything, not even love. It's difficult to trust such a jerked away as if stung by an electric shock. man as it's never clear where the vectors of his personality are going. He gave off a first impression of someone After that, I had an old man, experienced and worldly. He tremendously frivolous, one who possessed rare and was born into a family whose members had for many peculiar notions oflife, often found puzzling by those who generations participated in great historical events. They met him. His face was so natural it provoked suspicion were thoughtfully educated, upwardly mobile, skilled at and I believed that under that layer of wonderful skin, lay rubbing shoulders wherever they went and never ruffled

57 S u m m e r -F a II, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuMbER 5-4 by callous twists and turns of fate. His handsomeness wearing among ethnic minorities (what a big deal)— had a majestic air. and his every gesture suggested a perhaps could really exist some day. I never doubted its profound awareness of his own value. I lived with him the attractiveness, and sometimes in a highly inspired state, longest, it seemed more than two years, and I grew much he could transmit a bit of his passion and emotion to the during this period. He knew how to answer all of my non-believers. But in general, his view of life suggested a questions, whether about politics, love, religion or the narrow corridor which was periodically repainted but psychological taboos of bygone eras. He knew the way to nevertheless remained cramped and dreary. In a sit cross-legged, drinking and composing poetry with calculating way, I studied and applied tactics of love, and literary friends; or dignified and serious with academic bearing the costs of lost time and more annoyance than friends, simple and easy-going with old women and happiness, 1 contrived to prove the bulwark of his idealism, children in the neighborhood, and brutish and cocky to test its endurance. This plunged him into an with the scum of the street. Many women revered him as overwhelming spiritual crisis. He received emergency some sort of idol. Old people found him loving and first aid and was injected with 10,000 units of an antibiotic affectionate; he never said anything to hurt them. 1 used to treat men who suffer from self-inflicted enjoyed his generosity until it gradually became like a inflammation of the bone-marrow, and all because he solid gold chain clamped round my neck. "What right do could not choose between his love and his ideals. He was you have to be so generous?" I protested. And his answer the kind of person possessing only enough internal suggested, “Just carry on with your life little girl. You are strength to devote himself to one thing at a time. Leaving still so small." Perhaps his brand of perfection was like a the hospital, he embarrassingly thanked me and perfectly baked earthenware vase, adorned with brightly disappeared down one of his mysterious corridors, this colored and completely proportioned designs; but its one concerned with the publicreform ofmoming exercises basic components, earth and rocks, originally loose, for people too physically unfit to work. However, my dirty, and unformed, would remain essentially unchanged calibrated burst of love had misfired and his ideals gave forever. When describing him, it’s important to emphasize him an easy way out. That was the only affair in which I that he seemed profoundly satisfied with himself. Due to actively played the role of seductress from beginning to his advanced age and precious experience, plus a certain end, and after he was gone I was genuinely sad and humorlessness, he did not dare or perhaps was unable to regretful. After thinking a while, it became clear that he reject any part of the status quo. He gave me many things, had chosen his dreary and narrow world over me. A or he almost gave me many things; affection to a nearly lesson for simple curiosity. But I must admit, he was the affectionate extent; warmth to a degree almost purest man I have ever met. heartwarming. The whole of his perfect existence symbolized the limitless limitations of mankind. Not only The sixth man was extremely complex, almost irrationally did he unconditionally accept those limitations, but he so, in the context of this most poor and backward society. used them to justify his behavior. He adroitly maintained I met him, after he had achieved an undeniable level of a cozy family life, while simultaneously offering his prestige in the diminutive intellectual world of Ha Noi, a generosity to me. He explained that people are truly small place where one can meet the most famous people creatures, fettered by the environment at birth, and by without a prior appointment, and use intimate terms of various obligations as an adult. Thus they can only address immediately upon striking up a conversation. I maneuver in a limited way, and within the confines of immediately surrendered before him—this human some predetermined grid. I hated those grids, and harshly labyrinth—this infinitely dimensional zone cluttered with mocked the way he struggled with his limitations. Up the disorder of contradictions, ideology, experience, and until the final moments, he still offered me a generous ambition. But 1 couldn't help wondering: do all these smile, and it really seemed that compared with other interestingand complicated things really exist or are they men, he cared about me the most. Countless times only an expensive and ultimately meaningless drama thereafter, I longed to abandon my high pressure work which people feel compelled to stage in order to cope with and relationships and run back to him, hiding my face in their fellow men and themselves. Conventional geniuses his solid chest and conceding that he had always been never seem to have personalities; who would dare say right. But, I clicked my tongue and decided against it. that Shakespeare, for example, was melancholy, bitter, Moreover, this flexible man was idealized as a model or sharp-tongued. Therefore. I concluded that my sixth citizen by the majority, but we must accept that their man was no genius. He had too much personality and reasoning is often skewed. While extreme persons may was too worried about his own originality. His complexity sneer that he is essentially harmless and not worthy of seemed the natural outgrowth of the uncontrolled notice, they will concede, if pressed to be sympathetic, interaction between two currents. On the one hand was that as egotists go, he's not really so bad. the traditional educational system, in which the value of everything-romanticism, historical method, even slipping Man number five was an idealist. He belonged to that cushions under the bed before a night of love-making— breed of men not born for women, money, or pleasure, is fixed according to a guaranteed standard of truth, and this made me curious. My curiosity did not last long, goodness, and beauty. And on the other hand there was however, for contrary to my expectations, he was insipid real life—vivid, crowded, subverting all conventions and shallow. His ideal world—to be brought about by regardless of tradition, undermining all ideologies and either a struggle to reform educational science, protect naturally overturning all values. Because he was sensitive, the environment, or reestablish a tradition of sarong he found it hard to overlook clashes between the two, but

>8 Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIuivie 4 NuiVlbER ?-4 because he was at the same time intelligent, he refused distinguished him from the mass of nihilists in the to take sides. Gradually, he found that the best way out movement. Their lazy activism was habitually was to situate himself somewhere above the fray, and insignificant, and they always seemed prepared to shout, contentedly gaze down. Consequently people who “I've found it!" after taking only half a footstep out the participated in progressively more public discussions door. It was not easy to label him godless, immoral, or claimed that, in fact he systematically rejected everything. relativistic, and finally one could only say that he had a They were wrong. He was too complicated and lost in his great sense of humor, his genius lying with his comic own complexity to reject everything. However, he did gifts. Many women went out with him. This small Don become a somewhat legendary and original figure, and as Juan was thoughtful and considerate towards them, and people stood anxious and sweaty in his presence, time because of his skill in the various stages of love affairs, he passed, and I grew tired. During the time I lived with him, earned a sultry reputation. After studying with him, I tended to dwell obsessively on my own sadness. I uttered many miserable women left and turning on him, strange and often contradictory phrases, ate and dressed denounced what they had learned. I also left him, after on purpose in a slovenly manner and lavished praise on admitting to myself that I am to remain a weak woman, only those books that no one understood. When we broke and will spend the rest of my life searching for strength up, I felt the world to be shallow and its people superficial. outside of myself. In my present state of panic, I dare not It seemed that there was never a time that 1 received from enter into his zone, a zone wonderful for creating poetry this famous man a soulful kiss, meaning one both and philosophy, but inappropriate for comforting the natural and pure. Afterwards, I heard that he had become hearts of women. I’m afraid that I will forever grieve over a radical moralist, preaching about the nature of three this unhappy Don Juan, and only drive away my sadness distinct roads: the acceptance, rejection, and escape by shrugging my shoulders and saying, “He was really from conventional morality. Later on he became a kind of pitiable, no emotion, no passion, no faith, in short he popular sage, a dialectician who approached society's didn't know what to live for." But people say that during intricate problems through dialectical methods and by an era in which subsistence is no joke, to strive only for applying extract of oriental and occidental knowledge. In low-level satisfaction is a vain pursuit, like supporting the end he became a recluse, and in an unrelated the expansion of an aerospace program. It is not only an development, the intellectual life of Hanoi contracted and unoriginal idea but, one might say, a backward one. no one spoke further of him. The eighth man had the hair of a poet, the face of a poet, The seventh man brought me much excitement but also and soul especially given to poetry. Such qualities are moments of my greatest uneasiness. He was not unusually found only in people who have a lot of time and no attractive, short, with thinning hair and a small forehead. concrete obligations towards life. When engrossed in the Only his voice was exquisite, deep, melodious, and full of rising and falling of his watery waves, and acquainted unforeseen contingencies. Upon hearing his voice, with his passionate love of writing, swiftly without semi­ difficult-to-please listeners, even those only impressed colons: I began to understand that the most worthwhile by outward appearance would be riveted and believe that obsession is an obsession that is actually independent of before them, if not a genius in disguise, was some sort of the object of fixation. The object is only borrowed as a otherworldly species of man, a being who only used this pretext, a means, an environment, through which or in earth as a temporary dwelling. Or perhaps they would feel which, the obsessed person can project his own eternal that this small man must deeply understand the and essential hunger: thus fulfilling the requirements of quintessence of life, as if his existence had spanned death—the dissolution of the ego for some thing, anything, scores of generations, and could consequently draw on existing independently outside one’s self. Perhaps that the experience of both ghosts and men. It was said that obsession should be controlled. At some point the most he followed nihilist principles, but I didn't understand mundane catalyst, a skirt or a fallen leaf, is enough to what this meant. I speculated that it was a unique provoke a series of captivating chain reactions: while at philosophical idea which can never be fully grasped, or another time much more important objects will only perhaps the final foundation of all foundations or a mode inspire an absurd indifference. I did not know whether I of behavior reserved especially for those without virtue, was worthwhile or mundane, but this was not really the those both unhappy and very lonely. But this man issue. I was grateful to this man, and enjoyed the taste of refused to advertise his noble misery, the pain he felt for his affection, despite a small stubborn girl within me, humanity, the loneliness in his blood, or the weariness who refused to cooperate. She said, according to this with which he experienced the age. On the contrary, his particular mode of obsession, all objects are equal, and expression suggested contentment and freedom from therefore I am no different from a potato or an ant, but if worry, the capacity to accept or reject circumstances with people like to manufacture an obsession by constantly equal ease; or sometimes he was simply difficult to read. stoking their own engine, then by all means go ahead. His one fascination was with the brevity of human Gradually I learned to repress that obstinate girl and existence and the only being who provoked him to fits of ignore my uneasiness with the difference between anger, and an enduring sensation of confusion and artificially produced obsession and primeval obsession. helplessness was god. He considered god to be his only Let Proust distinguish between the two or the column worthwhile rival and lamented the fact that the great one “Mothers Advise Daughters” in some women's magazine: so rarely showed himself. It was perhaps the complexity I am only interested in my own obsession and its of his relationship with god that fundamentally consequences. The most ironic aspect of its unforeseen

59 S uiviimer-F aII, 1992 ViET INam G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuiVlbER ?-4 consequences, was that both he and I became pitiful which I had already been blessed with enough times victims of the obsession. It forced him to wait by every before; secondly, as relations with women never took up street on which I might pass, to pull me away from all his whole life, I enjoyed a notable degree of freedom; and activities no matter how fundamental toexistence, eating, thirdly, with him, 1 suddenly felt a daily sensation of being sleeping, seeking work. It interfered with all my deeply and snugly attached to my life, a sensation which relationships, my family, colleagues and friends, and I thought about many times before but never actually expanded into all areas and times which I liked to save for experienced. I grew stronger, more contented, and began myself. I no longer had my own spaces, times, or lifestyle; to seriously consider the prospect of marrying him. Life my environment was upset, my psychological state was with such a thoroughly practical man would certainly upset, my language went out of control. The obsession promise a measure of success, like entering into a was like the third character in a love triangle leading him contract, in which both sides do not sap the other's and poking me in the back; it follows its own dizzying vitality, as often happens with those claiming to be madly trajectory, changes obstinate people into slaves, oblivious in love. There is certainly some advantage in avoiding to their limited abilities. In short, it swallowed us without excessive closeness and coolly carrying out contractual chewing; he failed his examinations, unable to resist the provisions. At our final meeting, he said, “In all areas rush toward inertia, and I turned blind like a Chinese including marriage, I am always faithful to a single lantern at a festival. In this situation, people can’t help measure of value: practical advantage." And upon but annoy and grate on each other. The demands of considering this measure, he determined that 1 was not individual liberation eventually transforms society into a to the be the one to satisfy his requirements. Now he must mass of Ts , each one desiring to control the others. This bear responsibility for his heartlessness. naturally provokes conflict. Exhausted after such a time- consuming conflict, he abandoned the relationship for Enough. He was the ninth man. the call of religion, but this new obsession exacted an even higher price. I returned to an original form of a (1988) potato or maybe an ant and heaved a sigh of relief. I felt sorry for God or Buddha as this poet will certainly grate Pham Thl Hoai, one o f contemporary Viet Nam's most on them. But perhaps those two gentlemen understand influential writers, was bom in 1960 inThanhHoaprovince. the essence of life more than I, and can look beyond him. She has a degree in Archival Studies from the University of Umboldt/Berlin and currently works at the Institute of The ninth man was a man of action, few words, Religion in Ha Noi. Her first novel, Thien Su, was forthrightness, and pragmatism. He was intelligent, translated into French as La Messagere de Cristal decently educated, and sensitive enough to appreciate (Paris: Des Femmes) and published in 1991. She is also the the real value of such non-material activities as wordplay, author o f Me Lo. a collection o f short stories, and the pipe-dreaming, fortune-telling, or making love. However, translator of works by Kafka. Brecht and Durrenmatt. the road he chose for himself, satisfied a predilection for Peter Zinoman, a doctoral candidate in Viet History at certitude and controlled vigilance. He believed in no one, Cornell, is steadily translating Ha Noi's most advanced entrusted himself to no one, and struggled to force life fiction writers. See his translation o f Nguyen Huy Thiep’s itself to bend to his will. His profound desire to conquer Vang Lua (Fired Gold) in issue 4:1-2 o f Viet Nam life was impressive, vaguely like Don Quixote, both Generation. desperate and dauntless. He had held down many jobs, for many different reasons ranging from the desire to secure life's basic necessities to attempts to secure glory and power. But he was rarely satisfied, as work never quite met with his expectations. The only measure he took seriously was that of practical advantage, immediate material gain being optimal and the foregoing of useful future connections merely acceptable. He was strict and prompt in the repayment of debts. While people found him useful, they were often cool towards him because he was completely lacking in false ethics, those gastric juices which allow for the digestion of the inedible components in the relations between people. He promised little yet was so helpful with my unhappy life's most pressing problems (more so than all other men combined) that during those moments of satisfaction and gratitude, I confusingly asked myself if this really could be love? And could women like myself have lost such confidence in themselves and in this difficult-to-understand era that we need a love such as this? He did grant me three things: firstly, because he was always so busy, he did not have the time to undergo a period of spiritual crisis, something

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with lovely tenderness. Bam. King Koopa zaps Mario, all ThE L ast VC five lives blink out. Tonetta came into the program too late for an abortion and now she rubs her big black melon A story by Wayne Karlin, RR 1, Box 268K, Lexington Park, belly in K-K's attitude every chance she gets, whenever MD 20653. she can’t get at K-K with words or hands. Every chance, all the time, knowing the counselors were giving K-K BC “And what exotic isle d’ye hail from?" the innkeeper asks. pills, standing over her and watching her swallow because “Florida, muthafucka," K-K answers. The other girls they knew she would swell, put a new mutant out in the crack up: the innkeeper has his act, she has hers. He world, she got the chance. She would too. wears white kneesocks, leather apron, rough looking red “Ladies," Louise the counselor says, “Behave. No shirt, white wig. K-K wears black. Sweatband, t-shirt, verbal abuse." jeans, beach shoes. Other people dressed in old history- “K-K started it," Tonetta says. type clothes parade back and forth on the lawn outside “That's Kiet, please," Louise says. the window, melting long and tall and fat and thin like “Shee-it, whatever," Tonetta says and the other girls candles through the wavy glass. K-K there to see Historic laugh again. K-K is pissed at Louise for bringing it up. Her Maryland with the other girls from Ruth’s House, daffies, name. She was Keisha when she came to Ruth’s House Disturbed Adolescent Females, the counselors think from Crownsville Detention, but Larry got hold of her they don’t know that label. They already finished the exotic-I-land papers and he found Kiet, drew that name Nature Walk and the Founders’ Ship, an old-time three up out of the muck at the bottom of the sea, this old bone- masted ship, you can go aboard but nothing happens on memory he had he wanted her to wrap her new skin it like Pirates of the Caribbean or anything, you just look around. She had to explain to him that name was all at the sailors’ hammocks and some barrels and go uh- drowned, all blue and shriveled up and fish nibbling its huh. There wasn't much else. Just a visitor center that eye sockets, so she tried being reasonable and said go looked like a bam to K-K, and the inn where they are now, with K-K, but he tells her no, you need to be proud of your and a brick building supposed to be the first capital only heritage. Meaning the gook part she didn't know fuck-all she figures the historic people looked around said oh shit, about, meaning, she said to him, he was telling her not the boonies, and moved. That was it. Except for some to be proud of the African part what came on a different little roped off places with signs telling you to believe that boat. One at a time, he said, Larry, he’s black but he’s a buried under the dirt is a tavern or a plantation or a slave vet. you peel his grape skin and what you see is green. house or whatever they say is there. One little sign saying Anyway in her head she was and still is K-K. Half-a-dink, trash midden which to K-K's surprise is just what it says, half-a-splib, her third foster dad had called her, both his trash: this window set into the ground like the glass way of saying nigger. bottom boat, what you see through it is four hundred But meanwhile the bana-gana bonana name game years of dirty oyster shells and smashed up plates and further pisses Tonetta off, Tonetta getting her name from cups, old chewed-on bones and pipes. This garbage the cat in the first or second or whatever foster home had under everything. tried to keep her. The way she had left that place, Tonetta “A saucy wench," the innkeeper says, winking at K- the kid had hung Tonetta the cat with a lamp cord to K. She gives him her hooded, cool look, she in her all which K-K can relate, but still it wasn’t the cat's idea. black, VCWA: Viet Cong With an Attitude, and then looks Animals get fucked over. Like, her last ex-foster father away, staring around the room: big dark beams in the low she'd run away from, in Florida, he let her go to Sea World ceiling, stubbly white walls, long tables with wooden once and she'd smoked some dope before she went and benches next to them. The room blinking into existence then watched the Flipper show. Flipper this dolphin who like the Star Trek holodeck where you can have any scene did all these kissy-ass doggy tricks for these people in wet you want. For a minute, she plays with the room being suits that were supposed to be its TV family, though she different for each group or individual that came in, fitting never saw the sitcom, it was supposed to be famous. She these holes in their minds. She did a theme park, that’s watched and she started to identify and cry from the dope what it would be. opening her up to things, lighting up things it touched “K-K no saw-see ‘xotic eye," Tonetta says to the like a pinball game. Like what do you suppose that innkeeper, putting her palms on both sides of her head dolphin’s real name was? Something like Glub-Click. Or and pulling up the skin, tilting her eyes up to show him Fuck Luck. Or Kiet. Swimming around. Thinking to itself: what K-K is. “K-K jus a gook.’ what's this Flipper shit? The other girls giggle, say gook, gook, like a flock of “Come on, ladies," Lariy says. “We’ll be late for the daffies, these disturbed dyslex-iac-assed ducks who fuck Historical Reenactment. up their quack, K-K thinking Tonetta must have picked They shuffle out of the inn. Near the door they pass up the gook from the tape they watched last night. a woman wearing a white and an apron sitting in Platoon, Tonetta pushing her, K-K figures, to start front of a kind of small barrel, stirring a stick in it. K-K Physical Confrontation so she'll lose her privilege level. stops, to look, but really to let Larry get in front of her. She She is cool though, smiles at Tonetta while she flips Mario feels Larry's stare on her neck-skin like dirty spiderwebs, mushrooms out of the top of her head. They arc through this kind of pretend sideways interest in her he got, like the air, smack Tonetta, she puffs to nothing with a blip. always looking at her for something, booby traps, she On K-K floats, to the next obstacle. Which is, Tonetta doesn't know what. smiles back at her, rubs and pats her rounded tummy

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Stir, stir, stir. Like last night, they were watching the on benches. The doors shut. The light goes out. A voice Platoon tape and she had just not been able to take this starts whispering, trickling into her brain like Larry's scene where the bad sergeant Tom Berenger blows away whisper. The movie plays on all the walls around her. this mother and threatens to kill her kid. The other dailies Sensurround. Creaking ropes. Waves. A voice says: going bum or giggling, they're so bone ignorant, but K-K “Hardship and starvation." She sees flickering people thinking what if this was some scene they sucked out of packed into the thin space of a wooden boat, hears their the garbage under her memory and that was how someone screams and moans, smells their sour puke, piss, the did her real mom? On the screen all the GIs fighting with stink of nuoc mam fish sauce. Sensurround. “The New each other whether they should waste the gooks or not World.” the voice says. and she started wondering which side her real dad would The lights flash on. The movie’s over. have been on, some of the splib soldiers in the movie on “Let’s go," Larry says. Berenger's side, some on the good sergeant's side, and They go to an open lawn in front of the big brick she was Charlie Sheen, split in half, she could feel them government house. A thick old man wearing a steel all inside of her. Stir, stir, stir. Willem Dafoe, he played that has feathers on it like a rooster’s head struts the good sergeant. by K-K. his armor-plated chest puffed up. “They really get So she got up and out of the room and sat on the into it,” she hears Louise whisper to Larry. couch in the office upstairs, in the dark. Sure enough “Playing war," he says. Larry came up after her. He went to switch on the light. K-K sees some white tents set up in a row, little fires Leave it off, she told him. and pyramids of three old time guns leaning against each “Bad movie," he said, sitting down next to her, big other in front of each tent. People are taking pictures of and heavy, and kind of leaning into her, not in any kind other people, some in the tents, some bent over, their of coming on way, but like he was really trying to see her, heads and arms held in wooden gates. “Stocks," Louise in the dark, moonlight coming in the window, splitting whispers, explaining the New World to K-K. A man is her face, Keisha blacked out and only the tipped-up Kiet stuffing a little boy into the mouth of one of the old eyes showing, like the eyes of his enemy. Or maybe a cannons. The kid's mother is taking pictures. woman he remembered, some lover he left swollen with a “Look terrified, Jason," she says. “Stop grinning like half-a-dink half-a-splib mutant to come swimming after a dork." him one day. When she'd run away from Florida to DC. A group of men dressed up in and armor she'd run to the Wall she'd seen on TV. The Wall took the march by, led by the roostery old man K-K had seen high yellow out of her face and gave it back to her black, before. Some of the them are carrying the old time guns. black with the white names scrawled all over it. She had “Muskets," Louise says. Others carry long spears. “Pikes," walked along it slowly, letting the names write themselves Louise says. A voice comes over the PA system and across her skin, if her daddy’s name was there it would explains that this is the volunteer militia, here to protect have stayed on her skin when she turned from it. the settlers from Indian attack. The volunteers are all “Who cares," she'd said. white and waddley, fat bellies pushing out their armor at Larry shifted his weight, a creaking black heaviness the cracks, fat old men daffies led by a rooster. They’re too next to her, the sounds of the movie drifting up to them old to be soldiers. Or they're like soldiers kept forever in in the darkness like a Historical Reenactment, screams the army for a forever war. and explosions and voices from this place where they Somebody beats a drum. The militia gets into a kind each had first become some kind of garbage under each of raggy box formation, facing K-K. The half of them with other's life. muskets point them at her. The three muskets, barrels “Know what I read?" His voice was a whisper tickling leaned against each other in front of the tent near her, are inside her brain under the sounds from the other room, the same model. The old men with the pikes point them screams and laughing and the crack of gunfire. “Read at her. Forafew seconds, nobody says anything. Then the where this preacher in Florida wants to open a new theme rooster man pulls out a sword and yells, readyaimfire. park for the tourists, going to have a village, booby- The flash and the noise split her in half. Blow Kiet away trapped trails, everything. Hire local refugees to play the from Keisha. Dink from splib. villagers and VC. Come on down." She looks back at the militia. They load and fire K-K just sat there. again. If she worked here she’d play a VC. She’d squat The sound of gunfire and laughter came into the down near the entrance to a reconstructed straw hooch, room. rocking her baby, waiting while the tourists, dressed as “Don’t mean nothin'," he'd said, a saying from the GIs, came into her village. Then she'd rise up, reveal the war. weapon hidden under her baby and pretend to blow them Now a couple, the man in a leather shirt and baggy away. Then one day she’d forget where she really was. canvas pants, the woman in a and hoop skirt, drift She'd put real bullets into the gun. She'd have a flashback by K-K, talking “ye's” and “doth saids" to each other, not and shoot a tourist, thinking he was a GI come to rape breaking out of it even though their backs were to her, and murder. Then, before anyone realized what happened, their act swallowing them. She drifts after the others. In she'd run. She’d hide in the marshes. She'd be the last the Visitors’ Center, Larry and Louise herd the daffies VC. into a little room that says Sensurround Theatre over its The militia load and fire again, shooting invisible door. The inside walls are covered with pictures that show Indians. Then they lower their pikes, point them at her the inside of the old time Founders' Ship. The daffies sit and charge, yelling, their faces twisted.

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to the front of the car. The driver hit it. The guy standing She backs up from the faces and stumbles into disappeared into the sunroof hard because when I jumped Tonetta, who cusses her and pushes her into the stacked over the hood and to the side to get him all I caught was muskets. They fall with a clatter. The militia men stop a the edge of the opening. I held on. I guess it was a ninety few feet from her and threaten with their pikes. She picks I did when I parked. What 1 meant was that the Chevy up one of the fallen muskets. blocked the driveway horizontally. It was Alice's car and “Look terrified, bitch," she says to Tonetta. they swerved around it, straight out the driveway and this “Kiet, put it down," Larry says. He steps in front of collection agency goon floored it with me hanging on for her. For an instant, she sees herself reflected in his the sake of my property. shades: black-clad, holding a weapon. The guy inside beat my hands to get them off to dump “We're here now," she tells him. She points the gun me, then my elbows, then my shoulders. He pointed a gun at him. to my face when I got halfway in. I kept coming. I grabbed He looks at her and backs up, funny smile on his across for the wheel, shouting, “I’m a crazy Vietnam face. veteran. I am an insane Vietnam veteran. I am a lunatic “Don't mean nothin,’" she tells him. and give me my car back 1 paid for it." They weren't loony “Foryour own safety," the announceron the PAsays, enough to shoot me. The driver wasn't strong enough to “please do not handle the weapons." stop me from grabbing the wheel and skidding us into a The musket is heavier than she thought it would be. guard rail broadside to stop. I’m still suing those two, and She wonders what will happen. Everybody is looking at the collection agency, and the bank. I pay what I owe. her. You can't trust the gooks, she'd say. Then she'd pull My friend Jim McKinney Jr. had a hard lifetime. He the trigger. The flash would leap out and hit Larry's chest. was short, and ugly, and when he was little his dad was Maybe he’d have a heart attack and die. his last sight: her often in jail. He got a bad start, but his life was a lot harder face. Or maybe he'd jump at her. She'd club his hands than it need have been. He took a lot of trouble for his and turn and run. friends, and got a lot of it from other people. Even as she thinks this, she clubs down at his hands I owe little Jim a lot. He grew up with me. It was and she’s turning and then she is running, a part of her always given that we had each other in mind. I met Alice still running in her head but her feet really pounding through the wake I held to pay something back to Jim. I against the grass. She zig-zags in the direction of the held that wake over Jimmy to get back at his business parking lot, holding onto the musket. Behind her she associates, his partners, clients, and competitors who hears Louise and Larry calling K-K as if to please her, but put the squeeze to him gratuitously, and never let up. she on running: what's this Flipper shit? If she Jim got bullied the first day of first grade, every day looks over her shoulder now, she knows she’ll see the two of the whole first week by the same third grader. After of them and the volunteer militia chasing her, pikes and Friday he told his mother he would never go to school muskets in their hands, their faces red and angry, their again in his whole life, he was not going to school on armor flapping. She knows she'll see armies of mad old Monday. His ma told his dad. Jim's dad told him he was men, all dressed like soldiers, all chasing after her. too going, every day. Jim’s dad got the story of the bully out of Jim. Big Jim said not only was Jimmy going to Wayne Karlin served in the Marines in Viet Nam. He co­ school, he was going to go up to that big kid every time he edited and contributed to the Free-Fire Zone anthology, saw him and punch. and has written three novels: Crossover, Lost Armies Jim did that. Every time he saw his persecutor he and The Extras. A Fourth novel, US, will be published by ran after him, and jumped him, swinging his arms Henry Holt in January. around like kids do. He got thrown off, and kicked down, and sat on three or four times every day at school. Jimmy'd come home with his clothes tom and with bruises, all dirty. His dad ate it up. Jim went back every morning and did the same thing. After two weeks, the A lic E ANd Jiiviiviy M ac bully turned and caught little Jim, while they waited in line to enter the building, just as Jim made his first From the novel Spoils by Dan Duffy, Viet Nam attack. The bully caught him in two hands and promised Generation. never to ever bother him again. He was exasperated from being hunted all the time, and tired of catching a lick or I came home and my wife was gone. I knew she was gone two every time he creamed Jim, three or six licks a day, because my car was there. It was a black Alfa Romeo from every day. my bachelor days with a sun roof and if Alice were home Jim had the special charm ever afterwards of not she'd be out driving. We had a long driveway and I had tolerating grief. Except when he was in the Navy it never time to think about this. Then I notice two guys in cheap was much of a problem to have Jim mad at you—he was suits fucking with my car. Fucking blue suits and tie. I really tiny. Not a real problem, but it was a threat and an didn’t see them, I was thinking about Alice. aggravation. Most people who give you grief do it I did a one-eighty and I jumped uphill out of my car. gratuitously, for no reason, and if you give them any kind One was already at the driver’s seat. The other jumped in of a reason to let you alone they will. his side and stood up on my seats out the sunroof and I wish I could have got the government to attend the shouted to me, “We got papers." I was running right up wake.

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overseas. He did underwater demolition and When he was sixteen, police caught Jim way inside reconnaissance. another man's house. He had two short crowbars he'd Think of what it must be to have someone else's made himself, and some rolled weed in his jacket pocket. memories! He'd brought some smoke along against the shakes but Jim and I never lived in the same house, but we were got so excited about breaking in that he forgot to either do neighbors after the war, as we had been as kids. We lived it or dump it. nearby each other in several small settlements in At the station house the officer on duty spread the Humboldt county. Martin was in and out those four burglar tools and the narcotic out on the desk. A passing years, and other friends from home or from outfits cop gave Jimmy’s right name. The officer on duty asked overseas and in the states were nearby as well. if he was Big Jim McKinney's son. My parents moved to an island in San Francisco Bay You've got to remember, this is long before every while I was in Laos. I drove down Route One slowly to see minor jackass who broke the law had rights. Torture’s them, from Seattle, where I'd flown to as quickly as I could simple. You have to teach infantry about blisters, and manage, after discharge. My parents brought me near the even then you have to inspect their feet every day, but Bay Area, and I may have attracted my friends, but that torture comes naturally to those who want to do it. They might not be the cause of our living there. We might have opened a telephone book on Jim's head and beat the settled there anyways. There was tract housing, very yellow pages with a club. In the morning they told him he cheap to rent, built in speculation, out in the country and could go to Vietnam or go to prison. He pitched what was sometimes almost all vacant. There were young families in his slop bucket on them through the bars when they with kids. There was lots of easy money around for young came back for his decision. So they took him to the men. recruiting station, but the Marine Corps wouldn't take Just about anyone who drives down Route One him, even as a favor to the cops. He was too scrawny, his through northern California wants to live nearby. teeth were too rotten, and he was morally degenerate. Jim came to do business. I was living by diving when They took him back to the precinct, and let him use the he came. There was an oil spill in the Bay, and I was paid phone. His dad's motorcycle club bailed him out. The to swim across the bottom from day to day to keep track sergeant at arms of the club told him about a new crab of the oil pools that accumulated there. Jim taught me boat going north that needed a cook. That Saturday Jim things about diving that helped me do that. He wouldn’t sailed from Seattle for the Bering Sea, where he stayed dive himself. Many of the men who survived the kind of two full crabbing seasons. work Jim did for the Navy died as civilians doing jobs for Jim seldom mentioned his days crabbing. Alice told the oil company. Jim wanted money he could spend. me about the industry. Alaskan crabbers work a sixty He came to Kelseyville on his bike. He had some hour day, sleep four hours, and do it again, following their money, and his service pay. He rented a house and line of pots back and forth fifty miles out from land, as bought a Chevrolet. He drove down to San Bemadino in long as the season lasts. The season is in winter. Calm his crewcut, with a dope fanner's whole crop boxed up the seas is fifty foot swells. There are usually storms. The Fish back, sloppily, with clothes and kitchen stuff hanging and Game closes the season when fifty million ton have out. He stopped in Oakland on his way back. been taken, it doesn't matter by which ship. So sometimes You may not know that Jim's dad is past president in competition for the crab the men don't sleep at all. of the Seattle chapter of the Diabloes Motorcycle Club. In the early days when Jim sailed there was big big He’s got that tattoo filled in. The Diabloes first got big money in it. It was the kind of work you can't pay someone when the Hell’s Angels got into organized crime. The to do. Men getting thirty dollars an hour would have quit. Diabloes MC became the prestigious club that was still No wage is worth dying for. Crabbers work for profits. individual outlaws, as long as that lasted. As president. Jim's share as cook for his first two month season Big Jim put up a lot of roving bikers that passed through was ninety thousand dollars. Jim was lucky and had a Seattle, including Angels who were traveling, keeping skipper who believed in money he could spend. Lots of away from the Oakland and Berdoo scenes, where even ships went down from the crew’s overwork. They'd over­ the Diablo chapters became drug rackets. load, or pull up two crab pots at one time and capsize, or With his connections Jim clued into those scenes just get so tired they couldn't help when the boat iced up. very well, with his first Chevy full of prime domestic Men commonly went overboard to rest. marijuana. He was godsend to those guys. They couldn't They also shot each other up. No one was ever calm control their supplies before Jim came. They couldn't and rested, and there were always a gun around. The control the docks, so they had no say in setting prices for boats carried a lot of cash. The big port was Kodiak, where stuff from overseas. Nobody they knew could cross the inland there's a Marine base where they send you if you Mexican border without getting searched. They didn't ball up too bad to court-martial. A friend who trained really know about airports. Their only supplier was the there told me that he was off-duty in the port once when mob. the fleet was in. and he saw a machine gun mounted on Then came Jim with good dope from Humboldt one bridge, and still-drunk crabbers firing on gulls with County. Hippies who had moved north from Berkeley had their M-16s. got way into that country to cultivate their interests I think Jim enjoyed the life. He came back to Seattle alone. You had to be hip to ever find them. They grew the after two years to spend some money. The police were still first commercial grade homegrown. They wouldn't deal interested in him and he joined the Navy. He went with the mob. They couldn't deal with the bikers.

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My hip biker veteran friend Jim McKinney got to be lifted myself all I could and hit it again. I fell back to the a very important man. His friends the hippies expanded floor. All my weight was enough to knock the receiver off, their fields. Jim never made another run himself, but to stop the ringing, which was all I wanted. My phone is Chevies and Oldsmobiles drove south every harvest. my own. I call people with it. 1 answer calls 1 ask for. Jim got a piece of the profits from both the growers I was busy screaming. “Alice!" and the sellers. The Angels would front him cash, and he “Mr. Thornton?" would take a cut. From the balance he would make a price I heard them calling me on the phone but I kept to the grower, and take a cut of that. He made lots of shouting. “Alice!" money every two month season. He paid our friends well I heard, “Mr. Thornton. We have a bad connection." to drive, and gave them cars. I got the receiver to talk. Jim's whole success was the illusion of negotiation. It was the hospital I'd just come from, the desk that He handed money back to the Angels, telling them he had had received me at six. They had been tiying to reach me beaten the growers down. They’d hand it back to Jim as all day. an option on the next harvest. When Jim made his price Alice had been struck while getting the mail. They to the growers he always allowed for “windfalls" he would didn’t tell me that. They just told me she died. Now I lay on them later, thousands he’d say he gouged from the couldn’t get my fingers off the phone, couldn't roll away Angels. from it, couldn’t get up to walk somewhere. Alice couldn’t But there’s always someone to eliminate the do anything. The phone made that noise, I shouted and middleman. The Angels accused him of cheating, and let shook. That was my night. the membership know he should be dead. One grower put There weren’t any neighbors not at work to see the out the word Jim was fixing the price, and the farmers lay accident. The car never stopped. The paramedics, who in wait for him on the small roads. The mob saw him were my friends, did their best, as did the Washington friendless and put out a contract, to disrupt the new State Police. market, to move in. Jim split the county to a small town, The ambulance crew broke into my house after their in another state, in a corner of it far from any interstates. shift. They cared for me and told me what I know about In two years times had changed and Jim came back. her passing. He did like the area. He died in bed soon after. A doctor I didn’t do anything like I did when Jim died. Acting has told me that happens. A paramedic said that he’d I think is matter of ceremony you perform when it’s tried to rescue a Cambodian who died with equally little something you've felt before and you know what to do. reason. I owed little Jim a lot. I held the wake to pay him In those days no friend's death was sudden for me. back, to pay his clients and partners and competitors. It I bet it was sudden to Jim, though. He had twoquietyears was the thing to do. I owed him more afterwards for to slow down. He had a day between his two heart attacks meeting Alice. After Alice died my debt to him was to realize. Alice’s death was sudden to me, as real as Jim’s responsible for everything 1 had and lost in her. At the own was to him. time, I owed him and simply paid back. After I wrecked my car I walked. The cops didn’t Jim left me everything. In the day he had, he had his know who to arrest when we woke up at the hospital and bail bondsman’s lawyer make out a blanket will. There talked. They got a doctor to put me to sleep and let those were no debts. Everything was paid for in cash. guys out. 1 walked home logy and Alice still wasn't there 1 turned it all back into cash and closed Jim's this time though of course neither was the car. accounts. 1 did it the morning I heard he was dead. I She wasn’t in the kitchen, she wasn’t in the dinette, wasn’t working steady. I got the phone call, went to the she wasn’t in the bedroom. I was hurt. I still do hurt from lawyer, went to the bank, called a second-hand jobber, the wrench on my shoulder when the car started and the and I had all of Jim's substance in my jeans by three. shock to my back when I stopped it. Right then I couldn’t Then I made a list for the party. stand. I couldn’t sit down. I tried laying on our big bed. I Jim hated funerals. I don't know anyone who went couldn't stand the pain there and forced myself to ease to his. The last funeral I attended I had to be there. I was down onto the floor beside it. Then I couldn't get up pallbearer. I wasn’t a friend of the family, I didn't know though I felt no improvement where I was. The phone was him. I was the right height. Every Sunday when I was in nearby but I couldn't dial it. My fingers had held my door training in Texas it was an even chance ifyou were six foot key and opened the house but now they didn't move. I two you would have to carry the coffin of a fellow Green started bellowing for Alice. She didn’t come. Beret who had stood under a bomb in Vietnam. The Alice was my wife. Alice was a limnologist. Alice was unknown soldier I would carry was entitled to a military a surface geologist, a hydrographer. She knew about funeral, and I was obliged to help him in it. They were lakes. Alice knew a lot. Alice was a surface geologist who miserable and hot funerals. It was distressing to talk to didn’t care to work for Shell. Alice came with me on walks the father and mother about the deceased. in the Muir Woods and fishing off the leper island in San What we held was a wake. I spent every cent on Francisco Bay. liquor. Then I got on the phone. I called everyone who The phone rang. That hurt. I hit it. All my strength loved Jim. I couldn’t get his dad. I called and left messages was just enough to rattle the receiver in its cradle, and it at work for the girlfriend of one of the brothers at the rang again with an extra, painful, reverberation. Like Seattle Diabloes. 1 called all the local divers. when you kick a garbage can while it’s still shaking. 1

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David Winkiie answered the phone before it rang. Friday was for the ordinary assholes. The party got He’s like that. He was a drinker before serving. We shared swinging in the afternoon. All Jim's local friends were a six-pack once after a dive together, and he told me how there early, since few of us worked. As the drinking got on, he stopped drinking altogether once. It was right after he one by one there would be words and an old friend of Jim’s got overseas, and the effect lasted until New Year's after would naturally take out one of the deceased's old he was discharged. What had happened was he had a everyday tormentors. That evening the farmers arrived binge with a friend from his compound. The two were only from the country and got their clocks cleaned. All Saturday off-duty for the night, but duty was very slack where they and Sunday Angels from the South and Diabloes from the were in American territory. It was a supply and services north arrived in pairs and threes, just fast enough to feed depot. The perimeter was only there to protect the materiel a steady brawling too vicious for the cops to bother with and cars against the black market. So they felt safe and too small for the county to feel obliged to do something staggering out past the guards. They got separated and about. slept in ditches. Dave woke up near a water buffalo's I fought drunk three days There’s something wallow. His friend's head was stuck by itself on one of the wonderful about violence with no shrapnel and men to horns. care for, with no money involved. Dave said of course he'd be there. I called up Mouth That was how I buried Jim. Alice liked me for it. and Allen and the rest of Jimmy's drivers. 1 called up all Alice woke me up Monday evening. She made me the country fuck-offs he used to party with. I called up pick up around the truck. She drove me home, and stayed Martin, and got him. with me, and didn’t leave. Then I got in the car. I called on the dope farmers. I Only someone who hated ambition as much as she invited each to the wake. Aging hippies like to drink. I got loved me could have done what Alice accomplished in addresses from one and drove to Oakland. I talked to the getting me out of California and up to apprentice in the Oakland Hell’s Angels vice-president and his particular shipyards at Bellingham. Alice stayed four years in the buddies. They promised solemnly the full attendance of Alaska fisheries after getting her Master's Degree. She all available brothers. The vice-president said he'd see to was between seasons looking at lakes when she saw me. it personally the Berdoo Chapter would be pleased to When she told me after living with me half a year that it send an honor guard. was worthwhile making what I knew was a good life, I It was all easy. Motorcycle goons will do anything if knew that she knew that I understood her. I had to listen you talk about honor and ceremony and doing right. The to her. growers still felt cheated by Jim and thought they’d get a I loved to listen. Alice spoke clearly. She used her little back in alcohol. Neither the bikers or the growers fingers to point to things. She told me that plants and had any memory, it seemed, of the trouble they had put animals are usually eaten alive, that the trash I would Jim to and the attempts they made on his life. have left at Konocti was much part of the lakes she loved I was so pleased I went around and invited all the as the fish were. Once a door was jammed and I explained ordinary assholes too, the social acquaintances Jim had to her how any key is a crank in its special lock, turning who irritated him in eveiyday life. I do wish I could have the bolt. She, "What if the bolt were three feet long and got the government and the mob. The wake was going to you stood cranking it, hard at first, with less effort as it be quite a large function, just counting Jim’s enemies. came along, until the door clicked toward you on the And of course all of Jim's friends were coming to mourn threshold, swung free in your easy grasp, and you him properly. stepped into the building open to do as you pleased?" She I can't say looking at it that the wake was conducted had a special quality. for revenge. It wasn't like getting back at your little sister. When Alice died I had nothing to say or do in Getting it together was a ceremony, organizing it was response to the situation. something to do. The inspiration to go through those motions was certainly revenge. We carried it on with exuberance, though. There was nothing mean in our conduct. I know it was constructive or Alice wouldn't have been attracted to it. Alice watched me when I parked my truck near Lake Konocti. She watched me get out of the cab and let down the gate to set up the party. I tapped a keg and opened the cases of whisky. I took the twist-tie off the garbage bag the half kilo was in. I didn't know she was watching me. Dave Winkiie was with me. I'm surprised he didn't notice her. I thought he was the only other person. Konocti is a lonely park, and it was early Friday morning. David and I took a bottle and sat. Alice tells me she started taking specimens again. She said she saw us set upon Saturday morning and Sunday. She said Sunday we looked chewed up and happy. Monday morning she saw me all alone and left her jacket on me as I slept.

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tolling time till the end of Duffy's tour of duty or his life, A CowARd foR O ne MInute whichever came first. The ward nurses had been taught early on that their A story by Stephen T. Banko III, Room 213,65 Court Street, smiles might be the most important treatments in their Buffalo, NY 14202, (716) 847-7939 healer's bags. But they didn't have too many smiles when they came to treat Duffy. The usual sunshiny happiness “It's better to be a coward for one minute, than dead for of the round eyed women darkened to overcast gravity the rest of your life." — Irish Proverb whenever they neared his bed. Doctors ducked in occasionally, more to hear the Dufly might have been the first grunt in history to get latest jokes about the “shitty case" in the corner bed than hospital time because he shit his pants. Then again, in to treat it. But in reality, there was little they could do the asshole of the world called Vietnam, maybe not. except let the poisoning run its course. It — like everything But regardless of his place in the pecking order, about the war in Vietnam — was just a matter of time. Duffy felt very foolish. Surrounding him were grunts with Duffy had just reached into the bloody stench of the every manner of wound from the common sucking chest punji pit to retrieve the body of some new guy who’d died to traumatic amputations. And yet here he was, legs before anybody even knew his name when he was snapped suspended from crude slings and spread like a woman out of the nightmare by a sensation of coolness. He had about to give birth, his inner legs oozing and scabrous no idea how long he'd been “away" this time. He only knew and septic with a virulent infection. A strategically placed that the cool felt good. He blinked his way back into the sheet did little to hide his plight from the jokers on the present to see the familiar ceiling fan whirring overhead ward. One marvelously mobile wheelchair-bound GI was and the tent over the lower half of his body before very fond of rolling himself over to the end of Duffy's bed believing that another prayer had gone unanswered. This and sticking his head under the sheets. wasn't just a nightmare. He really was in Vietnam. “Come on, guys." he'd shout into the cave between There wasalot of activity swirling around him, much Duffy's legs, “line up for your passport pictures." more than usual. As he came more into focus, he saw the And Duffy, his ass hanging like some kind of hot nurses buzzing around him cariying crinkling bags that house plant, would only smile and take it. But for him, it reminded him of sandbags. wasn't all fun and games. Scabby sores covered the “Hey L-T," he said, “what are you guys doing? length of Duffy's inner thighs and burned with a searing Building a bunker?" pain as the raging infection ate into his flesh. But the The petite, red-haired nurse hardly blinked and worst part was the fever it spawned. It was spiking never stopped. around 103 or 104. That meant that most of the time, "Welcome back, Duffy. You've been gone a long time Duffy was febrile and delirious, sweating in a frenzy that this stretch. We thought we'd build a little something to soaked the sheets and bred the chills that swept over him keep you with us a bit longer." during his few conscious moments. The nurses would With a wiy smile, she packed an ice bag between watch his uncontrollable tremors fora few seconds before his legs. The other nurses were packing more under his jabbing him with the spike of Demerol that would send arm pits while still others draped his feverish body in him off on a tattered cloud of temporary, marginal peace. freezing towels. It was just as well, Duffy thought in a more lucid “Oooh, L-T, does this mean were going steady?" moment. I couldn't hack it. being in here with all these “Just steady that fever a bit. Duffy, and we’ll all be wounded guys. I don’t belong with them. I don’t deserve it. happy." One afternoon, things got real bad. The fever was “What for? So I can be conscious all the time? That's getting worse. The thick length of scab was reduced to not much of a deal. Lieutenant." slime, leaking gore and blood. The infection was oblivious Duffy was in and out of the ice for two days before to the assault of the antibiotics. The silver wheeled the fever broke. They kept him in twenty or thirty warrior made his way to the foot of Duffy's bed and minutes at a time, gave him a fifteen minute break, then sneaked a peak beneath the sheets. packed him again. The ice helped break the fever and "Oooh man, that's some horrible stuff in there. ten days of massive doses of antibiotics were finally Duffy. You musta got some VC bacteria to be doing that getting the upper hand on the infection. Even the pain your own bad self." was ebbing from his legs. But Duffy couldn’t hear him. His mind was suspended The green-eyed lieutenant slipped the last ice pack somewhere in the sequence of blood, death and fire that from beneath his arm and smoothed his hair back from had been his life since his arrival in Vietnam. Mired in his clammy forehead. own semi-conscious limbo, he was visited alternately by “I think we finally beat it, Duffy." the faces of the friends he'd seen die and the strangers “What exactly was 'it,' L-T, this bad 'it' that keeps he'd helped kill. One minute his mind echoed with the kicking my pretty young butt?" screaming moans of the wounded and next, it wallowed “Make you a deal. I'll tell you what 'it' was and you in the silence of the dead. Even unconscious, Duffy found tell me how 'it' happened. The ward's been rife with no refuge from the war. rumor ever since you got here but nobody really knows Through it all, the intravenous medicine leaked a what happened." drop at a time — like sand tumbling from an hourglass, “It's a deal, Lieutenant. You first."

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“You had the most incredible staph infection anyone “Oh Duffy, how could you — I mean. I know how it on this ward has ever seen. The inner portions of both legs could happen, but how could you walk around like that?" were covered with it. It looks like whatever it was got in “Well, what did you expect me to do? Call time out? through the leech bites and the scratches covering your Ask to get picked up because I messed my pants? The legs. It caused a fever that spiked at about 105 degrees. war's like show biz — it goes on. you know?" That's when we had to put you on ice. It was pretty shaky “God, didn't it hurt?" * there for a while. We didn't really know if we were going “Hell, yes, it hurt. It hurt bad for the first couple to get you back. If we knew more about what happened hours. I knew I was rubbing myself pretty raw. It happened to you, we might have known more about how to treat the to me once before — when I was about seven. Playing infection. Butyou weren't cooperating. Your turn, buddy. hockey out on a pond and I was too embarrassed to take What happened?" a dump in the bushes. So I walked home with my pants Duffy took a long, cool drink of the ice water on his full. But then I got to wash off right away. The good news night stand and looked around to make sure nobody else is there ain’t no momma to whip your butt for messing was listening. your pants in the bush. The bad news is you're in the “I took a dump in my pants, L-T." bush." “You kept saying that in your delirium. We didn't Somewhere in his tale, Duffy felt his hands covered know what you were talking about then, either." with the warmth of the lieutenant's soft skin. Duffy's embarrassment poured out of him as anger. “What about Rockwitz?" “It’s pretty simple. I'm talking about crapping my At the mention of the name, Duffy’s eyes sunk back pants. Lieutenant. Is that so hard to understand? I’m in his head. They went suddenly empty: black and flat as talking about being a coward for a minute. I'm talking glass. He tried to slip his hand out of her grasp but she about being so scared out there, I lost control. You know held tight. what I'm talking about yet?" “How’d you know that name, ma’am?" “I've been here for four stinking months and if I've “How do you think I know it? Every time you blacked learned anything, it's that nothing is simple. That infection out on us, you kept calling his name. Did Rockwitz help wasn't simple. What it did to you wasn't simple. And from you?" what I’ve heard about you, you're no coward. So let's cut Duffy succeeded in taking back his hand. the crap, okay?" “Sure did. Helped the whole team. Wasn't for “Was that a pun, L-T? If it was, it wasn't very good. Rockwitz, wouldn't none of us be here." But I’m telling you the truth — I just lost it out there. I'm A glint of life returned to Duffy’s dark eyes. His a lurp — you know, long range reconnaissance patrols? mouth curled slightly, threatening to break into a smile, We work in six and eight man teams and get dropped off but holding tight on the shadowy periphery of emotion. God-only-knows-where. We walk around for a while, He gave her back his hand. check things out, then we get picked up a few days later “Tell me about it. What happened to Rockwitz? Will at a pre-arranged landing zone. he come to see you?" "Well, we got dumped somewhere out by the “I expect I have a better chance of going to see Cambodian border, not far from the Song Be. That means him, L-T. “ the Be River. It was some heavy duty jungle, I tell you. Duffy was slowly submerging in the stink and decay Thicker than anything I'd ever seen. We had to rappel: of that dark and bloody jungle. His eyes glazed over. He you know, slide down ropes, just to get to the ground. was afraid they'd tip off the pretty lieutenant to where When we get into an area, we hole up during the day and he'd been and what he'd seen. He sneaked a peek into the move a little at night, just like Luke the Cook. Well, we warmth of her shining, green, eyes and knew at once found a big ole bamboo bush and we crawled under it to there was no danger. She'd never even had nightmares wait for dark. We were there about half an hour, when the about where he'd been. He was only vaguely aware of the sarge gave me a little poke. Our bush was about fifteen sound of the voice and even less aware it was his own. meters off a big trail and the big trail was carrying a big “We were about half way through the mission. We load of VC. They went walking by like they were on a stroll knew something big was going on because we spotted all in the park. I stopped counting at eighty-four and they those VC with their clean uniforms and new weapons and went by for another five minutes or so. Well, somewhere stuff. We also knew we were right in the middle of some after eighty-four, but long before B-I-N-G-O, I lost it. I deep doo-doo. But that's our job. We find 'em before they couldn't help myself. I just lost control. There’s six of us can get to our firebases. We get a fix on where they were and a hundred or so bad guys and nothing between us heading, call in the zoomies in the jets and helicopters. but some bamboo poles. I just lost it. Tears, shakes, and Then just sit back and watch the fireworks. before I knew it, there’s shit running down my leg. I wasn’t “It was dusk on the third day and the sarge decided making any noise, but it didn't take long before the smell to take a chance moving before dark to get closer to a trail got real noticeable. Thank God, the column of VC was we thought they might be using. Rockwitz was on the almost by us. point. Jefferson was next, then me, the sarge, Garcia and “It took about five more minutes and they were gone. Monteith walking drag. Moving in the jungle was okay. It They never gave us a look. But here 1 am, out on day one was already pretty dark in there but we could still make of a three day patrol, in hundred degree heat and I got shit good time. But then we had to cross some open elephant lining my pants." grass — about two hundred meters worth — to get closer

4 8 S u m m e r -Fa II, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration V oIum e 4 NuMbER 5-4 to the river where we were going to set up. The sarge "We must have hurt them some because when we thought we should wait for a few minutes till it got darker. were moving back to our night position, we ran into three But Rocky wanted to move right away. So, we up and different patrols they had out looking for us. We dodged started across the clearing. We were about twenty-five the first two, then our luck ran out. I was on the point and meters from the edge of the jungle when we saw these we were making pretty good time when 1 saw the bad guy three guys coming the other way. They must have surprised right in the middle of the trail just ahead of me. He turned Rockwitz because both of the pointmen fired about the to look at me and I squeezed off three quick shots. Then same time." we ducked into the brush. Took us another hour but we “Oh God," the L-T broke in. “They killed Rockwitz?" got back to the river about a little before dawn. Duffy's eyes softened a little and his hand squeezed “Garcia — he looked real glad to see us. He said hers this time. Rocky was getting worse and there were enemy patrols all “Hell no, Rocky killed them. Rock’s one fast momma over the place. Rocky's moaning almost gave them away with his Thompson. He got them all, so we had to really a couple of times. I heard him and the sarge talking and make it for the river and some cover. they said we had six klicks to walk at first light to get to “Well, we got back into the jungle and slipped in by the pick-up zone for extraction. Humping six klicks with the river bankjust as night fell. 1 figured everything was Rocky in a bad way was going to be a real bitch—no okay, even with my legs rubbed as raw as hamburger. offense L-T." I slipped down into the water to rinse some of the crap “None taken." The lieutenant turned away from her off me and cool the burning. Then I crept back up to patient and smiled. Rocky's position and to see if he had some Vaseline or Duffy was like most of the other boy-warriors in something to put between my legs. I couldn’t see him in Vietnam. He could roam the jungles and patrol the rice the dark but as soon as he tried to talk, I knew paddies in search of enemy soldiers to kill but he wasn't something was real wrong. quite yet comfortable cursing in front of a woman. “He rattled— you know — like he was trying to clear “The dawn came and we didn’t waste any time. I his throat or something. I crawled over. He was trying had Rocky, so we were in the middle of the team. It was to keep from coughing but he couldn't and every time he hot as hell and moving through the jungle was taking a coughed, pink foam bubbled out of his mouth. I opened big bite out of my butt. Then we got into a clearing of his shirt and there was blood all over his belly and elephant grass and we tried to make some time. But chest. I eased him down by the river bank and went for Rocky just couldn’t cut it. He was trying, but he was Garcia, our doc. He came back with me, took one look hurting too bad. 1 wound up carrying him and that was Rocky and started working like hell. He pulled the field surely no day at the beach. We stopped in a little clump dressing off Rocky's belt and ripped open the plastic of trees to get a bearing on the pick-up point and the wrapper. Then he leaned over and said something in sarge figured we only had two klicks to go. I thought we Rocky's ear. Garcia motioned me to put my hand over just might make it. Rocky's mouth. Garcia squeezed on something and the “I took a big swig out of my canteen and gave Rocky blood squirted out of Rocky’s mouth and shot through another piece of bubble gum. He couldn’t have any water my fingers. It was a real mess. because of the stomach wound and all, so his breath was “But Garcia used that plastic to seal up that hole and enough to wilt the jungle. 1 hoisted him up on my Rockwitz started breathing a lot easier. I asked him how shoulders and we started on the last leg of the march. The Rocky was doing but he just crawled away. I knew elephant grass was tearing me up. It was about four feet something wasn't right." high and sharp as razors. I was already having a little Duffy stared out the window again, and the nurse problem with my crotch rash and then my arms got all knew his mind leaving his body again. ripped up in the grass. And sweet suffering Jesus, does “Rocky'd moan a little when the pain got to be too that stuff itch!" much for him and I'd put my hand over his mouth and Duffy’s arms were covered with a mass of angry, pus- rock him till it went away. 1 wanted to sit with h im all night filled scratches that crisscrossed his flesh like some but the sarge said we couldn’t blow the mission because diabolical connect-the-dots puzzle. one guy got hurt. So I gave Rocky some of my bubble gum “We covered about five hundred meters before I and Garcia gave him a whack of morphine and we went needed some rest. Carrying Rocky in that heat was out to recon. kicking my butt. But before I could get somebody's “We were out a couple hours, moving real smooth on attention, the gooks did it for me. There was a big a narrow trail when we picked up the movement. It wasn't explosion about fifty meters in front of Jefferson—either much. Ole Luke the Gook surely does know how to move a mortar or a rocket grenade—then we were in it up to our at night. But get enough of them on a trail at night and lips. even they can’t help making some noise. We were laying “We were in a fire storm of all kinds of shooting— in behind some big banyans when they came down the mortars, rockets, machine guns, AKs. In the middle of trail heading away from the river. We figured they were grass, we had nowhere to hide. The bullets kept snapping the same guys made me mess my pants. We waited till and cracking all over the place. I covered Rocky with my they were a few hundred meters down the trail and called body and prayed. After a few minutes there was a lull in up some helicopter gunships and brought some artillery the firing and I heard the sarge yelling for Jefferson's on their butts. radio. But Jefferson yelled back the box took a couple of

4 9 Sumivier-FaU, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuivibER 5-4 rounds and wasn't working. That meant no commo with Snatched us right out of the mouth of the dragon and here the choppers. So we had to get to the extraction point or we are. we'd miss the ride home. I was one scared momma about “Another team went out and brought Rocky’s body that time, L-T. back the next day." “But sarge knew his stuff. We just got everybody Duffy was still staring into the cruel, terrible hell that together and started crawling toward the treeline. The the safe and sheltered have never seen. But his face grass was high enough that the gooks couldn’t see us. softened and his eyes glimmered with a hint of the fire They kept shooting but they were shooting blind. At first, they’d lost. we were doing all right. But it was just too tough, trying “Hell of an army we got over here, L-T, one hell of an to pull and push and drag Rocky and keep down and out army." of the line of fire. I dragged him for a couple meters, but When she didn't answer, Duffy snapped out of his he started to bleed and I knew he was hurting real bad. trance and looked at the pretty nurse. This time it was her But I just couldn’t hack it anymore. So Garcia took over eyes pooling their sorrow, flat and cold. but he wasn’t doing much better. He got so frustrated, he sort of sat up to get a better grip on Rockwitz and I saw his shoulder explode in a bubble burst of red. There was Rock S ta r just no way we were going to make any time with Rocky not able to move himself. Memoir by Jim Morrison, 122 N 50 W, Orem, UT 84057, “The sarge knew it and we all knew it. There was no e-mail: [email protected]> way we were going to make it. It was all over. We couldn't get to the pick-up spot and we couldn’t leave Rocky behind. So the sarge told us to make a circle around I've always been poked fun at because of my name. I Rocky and Garcia. Then we'd just wait for the gooks to thought it was a pretty good name but anyone that knows assault. We'd take as many of them as we could, but about the rock group The Doors immediately picks up on nobody had any false hopes about what was going to it. The recent movie about Jim Morrison and The Doors happen. brought a new interest. People saying things like: “You know, L-T, not one of those guys said a word. “Jim Morrison, huh? Did you used to sing with The They just circled up and stacked their ammo. Even Doors?" Garcia. He said he wasn't hurt so bad he couldn't take his People would remember me because they place in the circle like everybody else. I helped him wrap remembered someone else. They remembered the his shoulder wound and he crawled out to take his place mysterious young man with his strange lyrics. What an on the little perimeter. I couldn't believe it. I kept wondering: incredible rock band! In my humble opinion (although who are these guys? We hardly know each other. After the the name similarity may have some influence): war, we'll never see each other again. We got nothing in Jim Morrison was The Doors. common except the uniform. And yet, we're all ready to How many really remember the other members of die for each other—to sacrifice ourselves rather than the band? I suppose only those who really thrived on leave one of our wounded behind. And in that second, it knowing such things, but everyone who knows The didn't seem like such a bad deal to die with guys like Doors, remembers Jim Morrison. Ifyou guessed the band these. I knew if I lived another hundred years, I'd never members were, “John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Jim," be with people like this ever again. I barely knew them, then you're out of luck. Just the simple act of writing or but I loved them more than 1 loved anything, ever, in my telling someone my name can change the mood of a life. conversation immediately. Once people knew my name “I finished with Garcia's wound and reached for my they could always remember who I was. I wasn’t the Jim rifle. There was nothing left to do but wait for the big Morrison, but once a Morrison always a Morrison, and minute. I felt okay. I wasn't really scared anymore. Until vice versa. And neither shall the twain meet— I suppose. I couldn't find my rifle. I laid it down to help Garcia and 1 only know my grandfather had the name—and as far as now it was gone. I felt this surge of panic—dying was one anyone knows—I am the last surviving member of the thing, but dying without firing a shot was something else. family with the name of Jim Morrison. 1 don’t remember I looked over my shoulder to see if it was behind me. my name being special as far back as elementary school. “And there was Rocky. For the first time since he'd I guess those years were okay especially since The Doors been shot, he looked happy. His chin was resting on the didn't exist then. I was just an awkward kid with an barrel of my M -16 but he had this calm, glazed over look ordinary Scottish name. Some kids didn't like me or my on his face. And goddamn, L-T, if he wasn't full smiling name. There were some who knew about my grandparents when he pulled the trigger. And just like that, he saved us. coming from Scotland. They didn't like the “scotch-kid" We couldn't do nothing more for him. So he did it all for so I didn’t always fit in. One of the more obnoxious ones us. Gave us another chance to live. And we took it. shouted things like: Crawled like crazed fools through that grass and into the “Well, here comes that More-ASS-on kid!" “Scotch belly of the jungle. The gooks were still shooting but in the kids eat shit for dinner!" “Better be careful More-ASS-on trees, we were pretty safe. Right on schedule, we heard or we'll tape your ass-hole shut with Scotch tape! the whackingof the helicopter coming in for the extraction. Only trouble was 1 grew up in a hurry and soon had the height and strength to punch faces into tomato pulp.

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The kid who made fun of me so unmercifully flipped me connection with him seemed forever broken. Jim Morrison the bird once while in the seventh grade. I practically was elevated to martyrdom while I just shared his name. forced him to eat the whole thing including fingernail, His death left me feeling ordinary. Just Jim Morrison, not knuckles, and part of his hand. theJim Morrison. When I would make a collect call home All 1 really wanted to do was work on cars. I became to dad the operator no longer fantasized she had talked the mechanic. Always under the hood. Always doing to the Jim Morrison. She just helped some guy with the something. Taking things apart and putting them together same name. The drill instructors meeting us at the bus again. Always tinkering in the auto shop. Understanding late that night didn’t give a crap about my name. Maybe how a V-8 worked was a piece of cake. First V-8 I ever 1 was disappointed a little. rebuilt was a Ford ThunderBird engine. I still consider it “Hey! I'm Jim Morrison—you know—like in The the best engine built. Other guys would razz me about Doors!" how the Chevy or MoPars somehow were better. 1 wasn’t Somehow I didn't think that would impress these fooled because I knew a good engine when I saw it. There guys while standing on well-worn yellow foot-prints was nothing better than a Ford engine running quiet and painted on black-top. Big, burly men dressed in strong. They don't make them like that anymore. Seems uniforms and smoky-the-bear hats were cursing and such a shame too. screaming at us. Barry and I double-dated a lot. Seemed to be more Most of the time I was just called Private Morrison. fun that way and we still managed to get in our fair share That’s what my name patch said: MORRISON. Nobody of necking. Barry always had his date in the back while special—just a guy who was following in his best friend's I drove. I always did the driving. 1 always made the footsteps. Just someone who was thinking he really machine cruise with rock n’ roll cranked up and the top didn’t belong here. Nobody seemed to care I had the same down. That’s the way I wanted it. Sometimes we knew the name as theJim Morrison. I couldn’t very well tell the drill girls were along just for the car and the beer but then it instructor it was time for me to leave in order to make it didn't matter. Time was running out on us anyway. 1 to some concert in L.A. He would probably lean back on guess we didn’t realize how short or terrible life would his heels and say: soon get. I tell you these things for a reason. Certain “Oh? the private doesn't like our lovely people, places, or things mark you for life. Like a branding accommodations? Well, fuck the private." iron. The iron is hot—the fire sears the flesh but something Then he would probably start screaming at me. good can result when the trauma ends. Maybe this isn’t “Fuck you, private! Fuck youuuuui" such a good comparison but how would a steer be proud I guess that wouldn't have been such a good idea of the Flying Bar brand tattooed on its hind-end? Well, even if my name was Jim Morrison. You had to be careful the brand serves a good purpose especially if the steer what you said or else you would find your mouth stuffed gets lost. I don’t know if you understand what I'm trying full of M-14 rifle barrel with your sweaty finger grasping to say but certain brands in life can affect you. Even the trigger while a screaming voice begged you to pull the something like your own name. trigger. Maybe if my mother had survived my birth she would There were only three ways a person could get out of have told my dad she didn’t want her son named after his this place. The choices were actually quite simple. You grandfather. But it wasn't meant to be. I was branded choices were to: with a name that only reminded people of someone else. 1) commit suicide, 2) freak out, or 3) endure to Maybe that's why rebuilding cars was so much fun. I had the end. evidence of something real. Something I could feel with One thing became very clear though, if you wanted my hands and piece together like a puzzle. I could make to commit suicide you better make sure you got it right the car start—make it move like something alive. I guess the first time. 1 wasn’t like some other guys. I never thought of a car in Our platoon had three drill instructors and you the feminine form. Nope—in a sense my car was almost didn’t dare call them DI. They would think the private was mystical. How it would sit there waiting for me outside the calling them a Damned Idiot. Then they would beat the high school and never once fail to start. At times when crap out of the lowly private. The private learned very this beast was cruising through the night it seemed like quickly he didn’t use the word you in the presence of the it drove itself. I did a lot of cruising with rock music Damn Idiots: They would say: cranked on the radio. I often thought Steppenwolf was “Oh, the private is calling the drill instructor a ewe? talking about cruising in the song about the magic carpet Is the private calling the drill instructor a female sheep?" ride. But the cruising didn’t last long. Then they would beat the crap out of you (ewe). I managed to hit the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in And, of course, we all played the queer game. If a San Diego, California about the time The Doors hit the private didn't look straight ahead—if he flinched—the radio airwaves lighting the night on fire. And long before drill instructor would want to know if the private didn’t Jim Morrison found eternity from an overdose so potent like him. If the private said he liked the drill instructor, it could have killed three people. Later, I heard jeers and then the private was accused of being queer. If the private sneers about how there was no need to take Morrison to denied being queer then the drill instructor assumed the a mortuary for embalming. Surely there were enough private didn't like him. And you guessed it—the private drugs in his body to preserve him for a thousand years. would get the crap beat out of you (ewe). Games—just silly, Just put Mr. Mojo in the ground. I took it personal. My silly games. Drill instructors are sadistic. Two of our three

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Damned Idiots were blatant sadists. They probably “Here comes Jim Morrison. Here comes the fucking wouldn't have thought twice about killing us when they Rock Star. Hey—Rock Star—we understand you’re a got bored of giving us hell. back-door man!" The third drill instructor was different. He was a Others would laugh. I instantly became known as Latino named LeRoux who recently returned from duty in Rock Star. Somehow I didn't feel like a rock star. I didn't Vietnam. He was tough. Well, he made a lot of noise to have long hair—didn't sing worth a damn—and I certainly that effect. However, his eyes never could lock very long didn't know any L.A. women. The name stuck like glue. when he was screaming at us. He would break the Marines knew about Jim Morrison and The Doors but connection and look somewhere in the distance. Almost most remembered me only as the Rock Star. Sometimes as if he were remembering something else. As if he were a guy would want to look at my dog-tags just to make sure preoccupied. As if he was afraid of training us to be men. I was really Jim Morrison. They always seemed As if he was frightened to turn us into Marines. I disappointed I wasn’t the Jim Morrison. I should also tell understood later what he was feeling. He was suffering you something else. The M-16 has a pretty good kick and emotionally. Suffering from what he had seen and done most of the time you held it with both hands. During the when he was across the pond. Across the large pond in constant firing at suspected enemy it would get blazing jungle paradise. Later I recalled his look—a stare like a hot. Your hands and fingers would develop a good case of VACANCY sign. Nobody home. Just lost in thought and blisters and as soon as Charlie disappeared it wasn’t no way of getting out. unusual to see M-16’s being dropped like the proverbial Some of us eventually unloaded our gear in South hot-potato. Our constant firing was known as 'rock n' Vietnam. I often wished the Damned Idiots were with us roll.’ Yes—we were going to rock and roll Charlie with our so we could have had a first-class royal butt-kicking time. mock-rock guitar. I had the name of Rock Star with a So we could see how they liked having the barrel of an M- different kind of guitar. However, there were times when 16 stuck in their mouth. I realized those men were doing I would have put 'Slow Hand' Clapton to shame with the a hard, dirtyjob and never got appreciated for their efforts rock n’ roll I played with the M-16. And. I must admit, I at trying to turn us into gung-ho Marines. I also decided played some pretty hard rock. I can only say this kind of they failed at their job. They tried to prepare us for what rock n' roll was played mostly out of desperation rather was going to happen. They tried to tell us what it was than talent. going to be like. But there was no way of really preparing You can call me Rock Star if you like and it won’t us. No way at all. bother me and you can make all the comments you like I managed to keep my interest in auto mechanics to about Jim Morrison. I suppose that's human nature but myself. There was a real possibility that I would have I find no-one wants to remember me for the kind of rock ended up at some motor pool tuning up jeeps. So I kept and roll I played in the jungle. Guess I can’t blame them— mum while taking all the crap they could dish out and if I had been killed no groupies or teen magazines would finally was issued a brand new M-16. Actually, I enjoyed have mourned my passing. I wasn't the kind of rock star the M-14 a lot more during training. The rifle felt sure in many people would have liked. No— I wasn't the kind of my hands. Felt like it could cruise. Doesn't make sense— rock star most rock enthusiasts imagined. 1 know. The M-16 was another story. I was able to take Oh, I have all The Doors’ albums and it seems only that thing apart blind-folded, yet. it felt alien, like a right. When I've got the stereo cranked up listening to The serpent waiting to bite. Again—doesn't make sense. The Doors I often remember the time I was the Rock Star. ride jammed sometimes when it was fired. Alive one I have to admit though, it's not much of a claim to minute and dead the next. I was mystified and scared fame. good because using that rifle was like playing russian roulette. I feared that I was going to be the one who lost the game. I can't begin to tell you how frightening it is to walk along knowing the rifle in your hand may not fire when you need it. Or, if you are able to fire it might just stop— dead and silent in your hands. I couldn't seem to get a replacement no matter how I tried. T h is is the most modem weapon in the world corporal and it better be taken care of. Keep it fucking clean, corporal. No dirt—no shit." I could make auto engines come to life but when that rifle quit there were just thoughts of an impromptu judgment day. I cleaned it until my fingers hurt. Some of the others in Echo company finally picked up on my name. "Well, well! If it isn't Jim Morrison in person! Light my fire baby!" There was one RFC who didn't particularly like me. His name was Patterson but eveiyone called him 'Crazy- dog.' He was the one who pegged me with the nick-name.

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V ietnam NIrvana: ThE NIne S t ep s 2nd

“Let me be the first to welcome you to Bad TOlz, my A story by Sean Connolly, XYZ Productions, 2727 Saint friend,” I say strutting into Wesley McManus' office full of Paul St., Baltimore, MD 21218, (410) 889-5852. army forms, shaking his hand as warmly, as gladly, as 1st gracefully as any Kentucky Colonel. “Yes sir, it’s just about the stupidest, the most absurd thing you could PC in the army—now who would've imagined that? Take have done,” and he laughs at himself and blushes. I make another toke on the hash pipe and PC can imagine almost a paper airplane from one of the forms and sail it through anything, but not me, myself, not good ole PC in the army, the small open window out into the Bavarian Alps. “Just so you can be an airborne trooper and wear the green no sir! Ask any woman who knows PC and she'll say, PC's a lover boy, not a fighting man. Go ahead and ask; ask beret, now isn't thatjust about the silliest... Now listen to and you shall receive. They’re out there, the women are, me, my friend, you don't really want to be here, you want waiting to be asked, pining and full of juices and desire to go back to Munich where PC can make you into a very rich man. Yes sir, allow me to tell you exactly how—right and thinking their insideout thoughts full of such cute nonesuch no man can say or do any thing about except to after I take the morning dump. Now you wait..." make them happy. And I've made them happy, thanked “But I'm not interested in becoming a very rich man, them, yes sir, thanked three of them in just one afternoon: PC." two at once in absolute heaven and then one on one going “You're too smart not to be rich," and I leave him on through the night long, thank you. Sweet Jesus! The sitting there behind his desk wearing one of his wiseguy tender tasty darlings need to be thanked, told that what smiles. Too smart and no worldly smarts turns a fine they possess is the well of all happiness and beauty, yes fellow into a smart ass. With nothing to do but carp at sir, thankyou ma'am, got your picture, too! Of course, the other people's lives. The man has got to get out and do only problem gets to be that pretty soon they'll be things. Just think, with Frieda and him in Munich, PC thanking you by asking, pleading, demanding that you could stash the hash at her little hotel and McManus thank them more often, as if thanking them in the first could announce a code word over the army radio network place weren't enough. and every GI in Germany would come to PC to get high. Now it's all right to be polite, but like my mama said, Not every GI! No Afros with their knives; no rednecks a man has to find his happiness in ways only a woman can smashing down the doors at four in the morning, must be contribute to, not push and demand. A woman, like my discreet. Only civilized people who enjoy life, who love life. mama said, will do something, give something to her man Who love what a little bit of money can do for you! Get out so he can thank her. And a man blind to the contribution and see the world! See Australia. China. Thailand. Europe. of a woman is a fool. A man can't be worrying about what O Sweet Jesus, here I am in the middle of Europe and I'm she thinks of him, he has to be telling her what she thinks imprisoned in a goddamned army uniform: Specialist about him by accepting her contribution without any Fourth Class PC at your service, sir. Damn, I smash my questions asked. Now, say this woman makes more fist against the metal stalls in the latrine. Look at yourself money and knows all there is to knoy about a splendid in the mirror, boy! Your youth is slipping away. Twenty- European city, he doesn't go around like Wesley McManus five and what have you seen of Europe but the graffiti does moaning about love sickness or doting on whatever scratched across the inside of this door to a shitter in bookwormish ideas pop into his head, no sir, he thanks Flint Kaseme. Some huge poker spurting into a furry her and accepts her contribution without doubts, takes vagina; yeah, hate to admit it, but PC's had to pull the old the joy into his heart, and thanks her again. poker a couple of times in the army. But not this weekend, That's right. I'm sorry, but I have to criticize Wesley no sir, the American College Girl is on her way. The McManus on this one. Here he is a DJ on the army radio European summer tours are just beginning. Girls from network living in Munich, the beer capital of the world, Iowa and and Georgia and Connecticut, I love with a woman in hand, even if she is a little on the rotund Connecticut women. Love them, love them, love them all. side, FrSulein Frieda, whojust happens to be the concierge Take Heather: used to sneak her into my private room at at a small, very elegant hotel, and who has opened his the Kappa Alpha house at the University of Georgia, my eyes to all kinds of things, from the opera to the sniffy lit tie very own privacy, thanked her every other day. have a restaurants tucked away in the back streets where the picture of her contribution right here in my little black aristocrats dine. He could be on top of things and having book. Who could've been happier? Now, who would know the happiest time of his life, but instead, he’s missing out if PC added some shavings of hashish to his morning on the opportunities she's offering him by contemplating cigarette, just a pinch as PC settles down on the throne. the ifs, ands, buts, and ors of yesteryears. I'll tell you, he's Wait, who’s that? One, then another coming into the the goofiest Yankee in the that I've latrine. ever met. He wants to give all this up to come fifty miles “Hello, Troy, how have you been?” That's Bobby T's south to the Special Forces in Bad T6lz (where 1 have to voice. Troy, who's Troy? Must be some sergeant. be) and jump out of airplanes. What I wouldn't give to be “I wouldn’t be looking like you're looking, Tumulty." in his shoes. Not that I'd be chasing Frdulein Frieda, no “I was concerned about you, that’s all.” sir; but I would let her know that I'd surely thank her for “The only concern you're going to get, faggot, is a fist her contribution, yes sir! in your mouth.” That's Sergeant West, that sadistic S u m m e r -F a II, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIume 4 NuivibER 5-4 bastard back from Vietnam. Said his calling card was to life, who hate life. Not PC, PC loves life. PC has always cut off the penises of the dead Viet Cong and stuff them been a happy man. Why, some of my happiest days were into their mouths. at the University of Georgia. Not an unhappy moment, “I didn’t thinkyou'd react this way, Troy. I’m no more not even when Professor Dickinson tried to keep me from a faggot than you are." graduating by giving me a D. Now imagine that: what “Yeah, just forget what you think." nerve! He actually tried to keep PC from graduating, from “1 know that loneliness can be a terrible thing. I going on with life. The old booze did the trick, though. thought it was a humane gesture, that’s all. You can feel Made friends with the man. Had to. Not a close friend, but awfully alienated in a place away from home..." a friend nevertheless. We sat down and I said. Now, what “Look, Tumulty, don’t tell me about my life." is the difference between a C and a D? Let me ask you? “I'm sorry. It’s just that you don’t have to feel Is there anything? Is there a C-and-a-half? Is there a C- ashamed about one night out of our lives. It's important and-three-quarters? A C-and-seven-eighths? No sir, to understand..." Some scuffling around! Something there's no difference between a C and a D? Yes sir, even banging against the stalls! wrote him a thank you note. “I'll rip your face off, Tumulty." Whoa, boy! Here I am in front of Sergeant Major “Please," a muffled cry. Then a smack: a wet, dull Jenkins' bungalow, number seventeen. What did I have slap! to do at seventeen? At seventeen I was nothing but a god “Son of a bitch. Keep it shut." Then some boots in my mama's eye, the most handsome boy in all of scraping across the floor, the door opening, water running Atlanta, Georgia, yes sir. Well, ring the bell, boy, what are in the sink. And look at this: there’s no toilet paper in the you doing standing here holding a bottle of bourbon in dispenser. Now what am I going to do? I can't ask Bobby your hand, wait, here he comes. T for some toilet paper. He’d know I had heard it all. “Good evening. Sergeant Major. It's a fine, fine Damn! The army's got you screwed even when you’re evening here in Bavaria, reminded me of some of the taking a dump! colder nights in Atlanta, and I got to thinking, yes, Sergeant Major, I got to thinking that you might like to 3rd share some of this good sipping bourbon from back home." “PC's not going to Vietnam, no way. No way! Let all the “Well, well, if it isn't the ghost from the personnel sadistic bastards go to Vietnam. Let them kill and maim! section." Put them on the levy to the 101st Airborne Division and "Now you see him, now you don't,” I say hiding let them all fly over to Vietnam by Christmas. Have a behind the bottle of bourbon, "har, har, you got me on Happy New Year in Saigon, hot damn, think of all those that one, sergeant major.” Eurasian and Oriental women: feline beauties, petit little "Well, come on in, I think you showed up at just the sphinxes. Sweet Jesus, you could probably carry them right time, for once." around impaled on the old poker, wear them tucked into "I did?" your fatigues while you type up your forms, shoot your “We were talking about needing someone like you," guns, talk on the phone, ’Excuse me, sir, excuse me, and he wraps his arm around my shoulder and shows me sergeant, I'm just thanking this Oriental beauty here, be into the living room. “You’ve met Sergeant West. And this with you in just a minute, hot damn,’ damnation, what is Sergeant First Class Curry from Munich Finance. He'll am I doing talking to this tree? Too stoned to see straight, be joining you in airborne training tomorrow. He's the too stoned to remember what I'm supposed to be doing, man who'll be administering the levy to the 101 st, and, we wait, that's right, got this bottle of bourbon in my hand were just wondering who would be the best specialist to to take over to Sergeant Major Jenkins' bungalow, make assist him when you rang the bell." friends with the man. Got to test out what I’m going to say “You don't say. Now, if I'm the one who's helping to first, practice makes perfect. “Now look here. Mister Tree, administer the levy, then I can actually make sure I'm not you be Sergeant Major Jenkins and I’ll be PC the lover one of the ones who's going to be on it," and I slap my thigh boy, never a fighting man. I’m happy being a clerk with and give it a laugh and shake their hands all around. Had the Special Forces. Happy to learn how to jump out of to. the sadistic West, the sly sergeant major, and the perfectly good airplanes here in Bad T6lz, happiest man slimeball Curry. Never saw such a slimeball. Like Dennis ever to sit behind a typewriter in the personnel office. Love Massey was always shouting in his long drunken nights. to fill out forms, love to fill up all those little spaces with The slime, the slime, the incredible slime. One hundred every letter in the alphabet. Why, I'm just a little tadpole percent incredible slime, this Curry, his handshake wriggling around and zipping in and out and between all made of glue. those tight spaces, yes sir, a tadpole is a frisky lad, happy “That sounds logical to me," says the sergeant major. as can be." “Sounds like I'll be as happy as a tadpole in a Damn, somebody might see me talking to this tree. summer pond." and they're sure happy to hear that. Besides, it's getting dark. PC does not like the dark. Get going, boy. Over to those limestone bungalows where the army lifers live. Lifers in gray, squat limestone bungalows, what ugliness. Who would want to live in such ugliness but mean, sadistic, unhappy men who are in the army for

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4 th “Alex," whines Alan in a baby's voice, “you know we tried everywhere." Mama, O Mama, why you? Why so early in your beautiful “His brother, Marty, works here in the Forestry life? A life! A precious life, a life blessed by the Lord! So Service in Hopkinsville, Kentucky," she snickers. “The beautiful, so full of life! Life! You were life itself, Mama. main street has a public outhouse." The very breath, the joy, the happiness of a full life... “Come on, dear," talking his baby talk. “It wasn’t an Damn him. Damn his simpering salesman’s life. outhouse. You know you like living in the country, too. Damn his suitcase of toiletries and thick clammy Kiss, kiss." handshake, his smothering plodding life. You were a “I guess so," but she pouts. Maybe they're married, rose, Mama. A rose smothered by his doting shadow. maybe not, but married men are exempt from the draft. Damn him. Damn stupid George and the cursed name he It'll be our little secret. Just the three of us on a Sunday inflicted upon me, this lisping prissy pissy name, Perth. afternoon cuddled up in a cab we decided to share at the Damn! Clarksville bus station where we introduced ourselves: Slipping, stumbling down the cushy leaves on the now it’s Fort Campbell first, then on to Hopkinsville for bank of the ravine and skidding into a fallen tree. Damn, this happy couple, frisky as a couple of tadpoles. “But, spilling the bourbon all over myself. Get up, the bottle’s listen. PC, I just loved Marty's old wrecks. They're all in the creek. Slobbering and crying all over myself, can around the farm house, old rusty cars and tractors, big barely see. But I remember you. Mama. O Mama, hulks of gnarled steel, black pipes as long as cannons— remember PC sobbing, running up the hill into your arms I'll bet they were abandoned rocket ships from an earlier when the tramps chased me? The filthy bums weren't civilization," and she grabs my thigh. Not for the first going to suck PC's penis for two quarters, no sir, they had time, either! Then she pouts again. “But all Alan wanted to pay PC three quarters. Remember the train. Mama, to do was look at the stars through his telescope. He remember me lying in the tracks as it roared over me? I didn't want to reassemble the rocket ships and fly away didn’t mean to scare you. Mama. Yes, you did weep for to the battle stations behind the black holes," and her me, Mama. eyes light up. She makes believe her hands are the sites Damn him, not even his. Mama. But another’s who on a gun and she maneuvers them around aiming, firing. was slain in Berlin after the war by some drunken idiot “You don’t say. Tell me, though, what are these black soldier who had forgotten the password. Slain by a word. holes?" Mama! O Mama, slain father, both mocked by a tourist in “Oh, don’t you know about black holes?" asks Alan. your bed, a seedless tourist who took you and me away He's all excited. “Sheckley and other writers contend from a great and happy life. I was never unhappy with they’re remnants from highly advanced civilizations that you. Mama. Never! We led a happy life. I’ve never been once ruled the stars. Unfortunately, the only astronomic unhappy. Mama, never! evidence we have..." and his hands are talking, his legs O Mama, didn't you think of me? Did you only think are talking, his whole body squirming and shaking out of him leaving me nothing, not even a parting prayer? every little word. I just have to laugh. Shit, now it's back to the damn army. Ifonlyithad of been "Excuse me, Alan," I say, “are you a science teacher?" him, Mama. I would have received a hardship discharge “Oh, no, English and the classics.” and I could have taken care of you, Mama. Now I have to “The classics, now that's something, isn’t it? Back go to the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, then they were highly advanced, maybe not Kentucky, Mama. They won't fly me back. Mama, they technologically, but they knew their stars, the won't fly me back. Forgive me, Mama, it's not because of constellations, why, it's fantastic. It’s absolutely fantastic. you, they shipped us all out, every sadistic slimeball There were no ifs, ands, or buts, they had their people, drunken bastard smart ass and me. their gods, everything drawn out on the map of the stars. 0 Mama, I kiss this earth that harbors... this earth They actually saw their gods in the heavens. Now imagine where you... I can't say it. Mama. I can't say it. I pray for that! I was reading this magazine back in Atlanta, I was your beautiful soul. Mama. I have a cloth of your dress, in the attorney's office for the reading of my mama's will, Mama. I will cherish it, Mama. O Mama... and I saw how they had the gods in the stars, just..." 1 see your face rising in the early fog across the pond, “Ahh, I'm sorry to hear about your mother," says Mama. A face as pure as the face of a god. Mama. That’s Alex. where I’ll be. Mama. A tadpole darting about in the pond, "Thank you." happy and frisky as can be. A tadpole for life, Mama. I “I really mean it," and she takes my hand and promise, I promise. I'll always be happy. Always! squeezes it and I squeeze back and she gives my thigh a warm pat, yes sir, we definitely have something going 5th here. “A little toke?" I whisper in her ear. She whispers to "Damn! You mean you actually chose to come and live in Alan. Clarksville, Tennessee?" “Not in the cab," he whispers. “It's disgusting, I know," she sighs. She speaks a “Please, please. We can sneak it. Shshshs," and she million miles a minute and fidgets like a little girl. “But it gives him wet loud smooches. was the only place Alan could find a teaching job. “All right, but we better be careful." We open the Otherwise he might be in the army, too, PC." windows a crack and light up one of the filter cigarettes

55 S u m m e r -F ail, 1992 ViET Naivi G eneration V o Lum e 4 NUMbeR 5-4

I stuffed with a mix of tobacco and some of the finest “It’s like a set to a Tennessee Williams play." marijuana grown in the rich, red soil of south Georgia, “Now don’t you be shouting and stabbing each other couldn’t pass it up. Their lungs are heaving ho. and wrecking up the place." “Now, I just haue to ask you this. Don’t get offended. “Yeah, desire gone sour. I don’t know, PC. It's been It’s nothing personal, but I just haue to ask because you so long. I wonder if our lives haven’t..." and, sure enough, two would be absolutely perfect Tadpoles. There I've said he’s finding a way to be as unhappy as he can be. I’ll just it without even asking. Have you ever heard of The haue to show him, haue to point it out in the stars. Tadpoles?" “Come here, myfriend, I want toshowyou something. “The Tadpoles?" he asks. Turn off the light, that's right, now come and look at the “O, I want to be one. I want to be one. They sound so stars. What do you see out there, my friend? Do you see cute. I'll bet you’re a Tadpole, aren't you, PC?" any unhappiness? No sir, you can see these great “One of the first, the very first. A charter member,” constellations. You see the faces of the gods. You can even and we’re laughing and giggling and tickling each other see the Tadpoles if you look a little hard," and he’s like three tots in a tub. Damn, before you know it the cab grinning now. pulls up in front of a concrete billet in Fort Campbell, “The Tadpoles?" and he’s chuckling, laughing. Kentucky. “That's right, my friend. The Tadpoles. They’re an “O, I know you’ll come visit us, won’tyou, PC? You're organization of people, a confederation, a charity, that’s so sweet. He can come visit us can’t he, Alan?" right, they’re everybody's favorite charity. And do you “Sure, sure, anytime. And bring some more of those know why? Because The Tadpoles are always singing and tadpoles along when you do come by, PC." dancing in the streets. They are people like you and me who love life. Who do whatever we feel like doing every 6th minute of our lives with nobody ever to bother us because we will bring joy and happiness into everybody's life. “This way, my friend," and we step out into the cold night That’s right, my friend. Don’t laugh. Do you know why fora little booster, Wes and PC, the two of us leaving the The Tadpoles will bring joy and happiness into people’s warm and dreary bar and its weeping and wailing juke lives? Because people are afraid to be happy. They are box behind, “and you are my friend." I sling my arm afraid to put their trust in their own lives. Can you around his shoulder and we shamble down the dingy imagine that! People actually get up in the morning and little alley into my secret hideaway: a deserted tractor they don't even trust their own lives. Sure, they trust their shack behind a redneck farm equipment store. “This clocks. They trust their radios. They trust their should put us in orbit," and presto, I pluck a paper string automobiles. They trust their schedules. They trust their bean out of the air and touch it to a dancing flame on the jobs. They trust their cocktail hours. They trust their end of a wooden match. His eyes light up with a dreamy banks and their television sets and trust they can get a hunger following the bright orange ember as it consumes piece of ass every now and then. They even trust their about a third of the joint. Sergeant Wesley McManus, now pastor won't come preaching and moaning about giving imagine that, how did he talk the United States Army into up their creature comforts. The coach they trust will promoting him? I hand the sarge the joint, three deep come through but that’s it, my friend, they don't trust tokes, back and forth, who knew how many tokes Alex that their lives will give them any happiness. But The took into her healthy lungs the other night, always Tadpoles will. Yes sir. The Tadpoles will bring happiness moaning, crying, Ayee, ayee, eyee, eeeee, all night into the lives..." slathering around in our juices, a sticky tart glaze all over T h e Tadpoles to the rescue," and he falls down in my face in the morning, yes sir, lathering it right up again laughter across the bed. until our wells ran dry, “Hot damn!" I haue to laugh, “I’m T h a t’s right, my friend, The Tadpoles will be a so happy, my friend. Are you happy? Have you been nonprofit charitable institution devoted to bringing happy all your life?" and he scowls at my happiness. happiness into everyone's lives. The Tadpoles are dancing “You’re being ridiculous. You can't be happy all your in the streets, leaving flowers on people’s doorstep, life. PC," and he's jealous of my happiness. singing songs in the alleyways, leaving little poems in the “But when PC lends you his little palace above the mailboxes, thanking each other... Lookat that! Someone’s bar, the little love palace for Sergeant Wesley McManus out there in the dark!" and his Fraulein Frieda coming here to Clarksville. “It’s a Tadpole fallen from the stars," and he rolls off the Tennessee, to offer her contribution, well, you'll be a bed onto the floor laughing so hard he’s holding his sides. happy man then, won't you, won’t you?" and he blushes “You crazy bastard, there’s someone out there. If and laughs. they catch us offbase, sergeant or no sergeant, they’ll put “Can we go see it?" us into a rifle company and we'll be dead the moment we “Right this way. my friend," and we step out of the tin step into Vietnam." shack and head for the bare light bulb hanging from a “There’s nobody out there, PC, nobody but good ole rusty bent pipe above the door behind the bar. “This is the PC with an unhappy moment from his past." key," and I show him how to use it and we go up the stairs “Damn you, Wesley McManus, all you do is mock, and into the love palace, a bedroom and makeshift bath mock, mock," and I throw up the windows so hard the as cozy and old as the floral wallpaper peeling off the sash weights rattle like ghosts in an empty house. “Go walls. look and listen for yourself," but all he does is sit there

56 S u m m e r -Fail, 1992 V iet Nam G eneration VoluME 4 NuMbER ?-4 with his wiseguy grin on his face. He starts laughing and “Begging your pardon, sir, would you please," and 1 start laughing and we're listening to the wind picking up the warm river of ease is now flowing through every vein, and blowing in the window until a hush settles, then a every vein, a river of hot oily stones, swimming through snow starting to fall like a prayer in the darkness. “My of river of hot oily stones with Kai Tai and every woman friend, it’s time for another booster." in PC’s life, every..." “Yes, yes?" the face of Doctor Chen, the face of 7th Buddha, the all, the... “Please—please what? But, of course, Kai Tai is here to please you." “My friend," whispers Doctor Chen, nudging the pack of “A mere slip of the memory, my friend, a mere slip of filter cigarettes across the marble top of the white wicker the memory. Please explain what you mean about money table, “these, of course, are the very best." What exquisite and poetry?" and delicate hands this man, this papasan, this worldly “Please correct me if I am wrong, my friend, but does gentleman has! He pats the money I’ve set on the table not Western poetry sing the glories of the warrior and the and shuffles it up into his right hand and rubs his thumb passion of the lover? Money. I am most sorry to say, sings across the top bill spreading all the money into a fan. of neither. As you are so fond of saying in your wealthy “Eight hundred and seventy," he sighs and dismisses it country, money talks," and he smiles, “as it does in every in mid air. The bills flutter back to the tabletop and he sits country." back and shakes his head in mock despair. What flair he “Sings the glories of the warrior!" has! What cool arrogance! What a passionate love of “Yes, war is not for the prosaic," and he bows and gesture: the man is as elegant as the French who built evaporates into the light. this splendid Continental Hotel in downtown Saigon, yes. “Sings the passion of the lover!" Doctor Chen, PC will soon learn what it takes. “Let’s not Now it is now as it is seconds, minutes, hours before waste Doctor Chen’s valuable time, nor yours, PC. The or after Kai Tai opens the shutters to the tall windows and international money exchange does not trifle with fills the rooms with light. She heats up thousands upon commodities in amounts less than one thousand. Have I thousands of smooth black and white little stones in made myself clear?" sandalwood oil and they cascade into the round brass tub “Very clear," and 1 give the sharp bastard a little bow, to touch every memory of every woman in PC’s life, every yes, very sharp. But your time will come, PC—soon, very touch, every ache and loss drawn through every pore of soon. “I just want to make it perfectly clear that none of every tou ch of every moment than king every contribution, this American currency is buying bullets for the North swimming in the rhythm of every touch of every Vietnamese." contribution, of every..." “Money is not poetiy, PC." I open the pack of cigarettes. “PC take picture now?" Clever little devils, the Vietnamese: they steam open a Take picture now," of every woman and Kai Tai in pack of filter cigarettes, empty out the tobacco, load the PC’s life swimming in a pond of stones, everyone a tadpole paper tubes with the finest opiated buds in all of Indochina, slipping and sliding in a pond of hot little stones, black and reseal it like it's never been opened. Yes sir, time to and wh i te, tad pole s wriggling ou t of every pore everywhe re, light one up. Poetry or not, this elegant little verse looses out of KaiTai's face, black stones in her eyes, white stones all rhyme and reason whenever PC fires up one of these in her mouth, black stones in her vagina, white stones Buddha Sticks; that's right, these are what the holy between her toes, black stones on her cheeks, black and papasans smoke, the pure stuff, the vision of the all, the white stones all over her face making a death mask, a one, the Buddha, the very face of God! Now, what’s this? death mask glistening in the afternoon light, the light of The Buddha Stick is laced with a fine white powder and now and forever and yesterday and tomorrow bound up our sharp Oriental poet here notices my qualms. “A mere in the stones glistening all over us in the round brass tub. sedative, PC, a derivative of morphine. It quiets the stones... nerves: takes the edge off, as you American GIs are so “PC take picture of Kai Tai in love stones?" fond of saying." “PC take picture!" “But isn’t it addictive?" “PC buy stereo for Kai Tai?" “Yes, if you were to smoke a pack a day. But “PC buy stereo for Kai Tai!" moderation in all things, PC," and he gives PC one of his “PC buy apartment and refrigerator for Kai Tai?" French frowns, a little bit of contempt mixed with a little “PC buy apartment and refrigerator for Kai Tai!" bit of envy. Very tasty these Buddha Sticks, very sweet, “PC buy best everything?" very smooth, turns the stomach like a piece of rhubarb “PC buy best everything!" pie: heaven never knew such a sour bliss. He nods and “PC take picture dead VC?” rises, slipping an envelope from underneath his jacket, “PC take picture dead VC!" exchanging it for the greenbacks. From greenbacks into “PC watch GI die?" and Kai Tai sinks beneath the the Vietnamese Piaster into Hong Kong into traveler’s stones and splays apart her knees, her thighs trembling checks into Military Payment Certificates into PC’s under the stones as she raises up her contribution and Pentagon Savings Account and wired to PC’s checking opens wide for the camera. account at the Bank of America on the Bien Hoa Airbase “PC watch GI die and see the face of God!" and back into greenbacks with a little bit of profit for all, yes sir, never greedy.

57 S u m m e r -F a II, 1992 ViET INam G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuivibcR J-4

8th tan threads, little guides back to PC's hut, there’s one, homeward bound! Bound for PC's memories, PC's privacy Dogdamn! palace covered with memories, with the proof of every Dogdamn, what was her name? Say dogdamn, forget woman’s contribution to PC's life, dogdamn! What’s this? goddamn, no more blasphemy! Dogdamn. screamed The door, open the door, open the door and go in and sit Bobby T the day he ran naked into the noonday sun in down, fire up one of the Buddha Sticks, thank you, search of God to forgive him for supplying the wrong firing Doctor Chen. A year’s supply right there on PC’s field coordinates to the 101st artillery batteries, yes sir, table next to PC’s canvas director chair. Lights! Action! slaughtered our own troops for five straight days, the Now, up there on the wall on the right is Susan Malinda’s pictures prove it. Dogdamn. I'm looking right at her contribution. Right next to Alex's. Almost the same, but, contribution from three years ago and 1 can't remember you see, Susan Malinda's bush has more fur, like the fur her name. What's that? Flash and gone, another brain of a ferret, while Alex, she has... Dogdamn, there’s cell imploding in a black hole. PC does not like black someone sitting off to my left. And someone to his left holes, too many leeches, need a booster. Better not light cutting and clipping and taping something. up here in McManus' bar, Wesley's Bar and No Grill, “Some gallery you've got here, PC.” It’s Sergeant Bobby T calls it. Who is this? I stand up and set my little West. Dogdamn, just when the big ease is about to settle picture book on the bar and look at it from a different in he's got to be barging in and ruining my privacy. angle. Dogdamn, looks like Bobby T screaming through “Well, well, if it isn’t Sergeant West, and Sergeant his new beard. Got him locked up back there in the Curry back there, can't fool PC. I'd offer you some of this storeroom growing his beard, stark naked half the time, Buddha Stick but I know it's not your style, unbelievable no use to PC, though, boasts he’s a lover of the boys these stuff, though: dogdamn, you can see the face of God,“ and days. Sure likes PC’s picture show, can't get enough. he laughs back there in his dark corner like a hyena Down in Bien Hoa City in Maya’s Mansion he screams feeding on a fresh death. “Yes sir. my contact, Doctor and sobs to see all the blow ups of all the dead blown to Chen, says the holy papasans smoke these Buddha smithereens. Sticks, makes the doctor nervous when PC lights up. “What's this?" The greedy drunken face of Dennis Loves the money, though, loves the money." Massey never asks, sees and takes he does, sees and “That's why we've come, PC." takes my little name and picture book. “You don’t say. Have you got some American currency “Look here, my friend, let's not play with PC's..." for PC to trade on the international money market?" “I'm not your friend, you scumbag, you slimeball. “Twenty thousand." Look at these pictures! Jesus Christ you're sick, they're “Twenty thousand!" fucking bloody gashes," and he can’t see enough of them, "Twenty thousand in greenbacks. Twenty thousand the greedy blasphemous bastard. His eyes are on fire. every three weeks once we separate McManus from his “Proof, my friend, proof that 1 thanked every woman bar over there." in PC’s life for her contribution," and he guffaws and falls “Unbelievable, you can actually see the face of God." back against the bar. I grab my black book and walk right “We need a base of operations, PC. We'll turn out of the bar and into a black hole, can’t see a dogdamned McManus' little dive into the biggest nightclub in Vietnam. thing in the dark and I fall into a . Dogdamn, 1 can't Shows eveiy night, roulette and blackjack tables, the even see my hands in front of me. Where are my hands? finest women, you'll be able to add a few to your gallery There's something itching in them. They're coming out of here, PC. All you..." my hands, they're itching me everywhere, they're not The “Here's the face of God, PC." and Sergeant Curry's Tadpoles, they're the leeches! They're leeches! Get away saliva is laughing in my face, his slimy hand locked from me you filthy slimy leeches! You living scabs! You around the back of my neck, the big ease settling in, the filthy slimy scabs all over me! Little filthy slimy hot tiny slime locked out, the word God spelled out in capital scabs all over me! “Help me. someone help me! I can't see! letters he's cut out from the photos of every woman’s I can't find my hands! Can't..." contribution in PC's entire life and taped onto a photo of “Come on, PC. Over here. Reach up. Grab my hand." a dead Viet Cong with his penis in his mouth. “Blow this "McManus! McManus, my friend, thank you. I fell in one up and we'll put it in your picture show at Maya’s that dogdamned ditch. I couldn't find my hands. Can you...” mansion," and the man is petrified vomit in my face. He “PC, you better give up those heroin joints," and he jacks my head down between my knees. He kneels down wraps his slimy arm around my shoulder, the leeches in front of me and wrenches back my neck. “Put these in jumping off into my face! next," photos of women and babies cut up into the "Get off of me! Get off of me!" disemboweled bodies of the dead Viet Cong, absolutely “PC, you've got to pull yourself together." fantastic, the dead rearranged into death masks, the “Together. Got to get there. Get the ropes," and I dive dark made into the light, the brilliance of the stars, a new into the dirt and dust and wash my face in the dust, no race of gods shining on and on, and he shoves me back more leeches, crawling through the dust, crawling to my into the big ease and digs his teeth into my T shirt, tears hut, to PC's privacy palace, got to find the ropes, the little at my nipples and says his prayer, “and there u>i!l be no ropes, the little threads PC fanned out from the privacy more pain, PC, no more pain," and he melts back into a palace like spider webs to find his way home in the pitch mirage, a liquid heat rising and rippling into an oily dark, can't see them, the threads hidden in the dust, little mirage in the dark.

58 S u m m e r -Fa II, 1992 ViET Naim G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuiVlbER >-4

"Listen up, PC," says Sergeant West, “you’ve got to “Trooper, you're wearing the uniform o f the 101st help us take the bar from McManus." Airborne Division and if you are not prepared to fight "He’s in his own world. He doesn’t care." then you..." “You put a pack of Buddha Sticks in his bunk and “Yes sir, prepared to fight! You’re absolutely right. I we’ll see how much he doesn’t care. We’ll see to it he’s witnessed the fight, the killing," and the shaking's coming busted down to private and the bar will be ours," and he on, got to have more than a toke, just a couple tokes, pinches my cheeks, little nudges forcing me back into the waiting for the big ease to settle in... big ease, the money and the photos there on my knees, "Soldier, if you witnessed this alleged homicide then now where did it all come from, what's been forgotten in you must have been aware that Sergeant First Class the dark? What dark? There’s no dark in PC’s privacy Curiy had been court martialed for war crimes and palace, the oily light from PC’s battery pack shining up reduced in rank to private." the wooden slats of PC’s little hut. Now, there's Alex and “Yes sir, but he didn’t eat any of those VC heads, no next to her glowing bush, flash and gone. What's that? sir, he was just stirring them up in an old oil drum, their Somebody singing outside, a little serenade. Wait, the oily eyeballs staring off in a thousand different directions like light is eating through the walls, flash and gone, flash and the stars in the night sky, seen the picture, just stirring gone, the place is on fire. them up, no reason for McManus to strangle him dead in “The slime, the slime, the incredible slime," he’s the bar, no sir. no sir," and the big ease is coming in like singing it, he’s singing his firebug song, Dennis Massey, a summer day. he’s torching PC's privacy palace. Can't move, the nod “Soldier, where were you last night: in an opium den?" coming on, the big ease falling into the nod, flames eating “No sir. The Tadpoles had gotten together before I in at me, got to get beyond the nod, falling off the chair, went to the bar to exchange the novels of Henry Miller. rolling in the dust, the money a hive of fire, everything Now, you take the Tropic of Cancer, every word is a lost, rolling out through the embers, everything lost, celebration of life, the man loves life, not some sadistic Dennis Massey running back into McManus' bar, got to bastard in the army, no sir, he..." and the Judge Advocate take it now, everything lost, have to take the bar. is looking at PC very strangely. He doesn't see what PC sees. He doesn’t see the all in one and the one in all. He's 9th excusing himself, going after the clerk to tell him to get the better of PC. But nobody gets the better of PC, no sir, “And you say you witnessed this killing?" got to leave this office, no other doors, just two windows "Yes sir, Major." in a dingy plywood office, air conditioners in both. No “You made no efforts to restrain this soldier?" escape. Wait! What? Take out one of the air conditioners. “There were others, yes sir, three others. Too much That's it. They're just sitting there. Imagine that! Where’s for one man like myself, three against one, they wanted the plug? The plug, the plug, wait, leave the dogdamned him dead. You see. they found the Buddha Sticks, found plug alone. What’s that? Dogdamn, the nod is coming on, them right in the bar," not now, dogdamn it, not the the sit and nod—wait! Got to get past the nod. Past the dogdamned leeches! “Sir, you have my word on it, a great nod and pull one of these bastards out of... Dogdamn, the evil, a..." air conditioner fell on the floor. Imagine that! It just fell on “Are you ill, specialist?" the floor. Wait, they’re coming! Out the window. Out! Out! “No sir. Just a rash, an itchy rash. You know what PC out the window and into the summer heat and light I mean, sir,” giving the Judge Advocate a wink, “just and running through the Tropic of Cancer. On to Australia! something I picked up. Got a shot for it already." Wait! What is that? There in the dirt and dust, a “And the names the clerk is checking, this Sergeant shimmering glass. I walk over and fall to my knees and First Class Curry and Sergeant McManus, these are the pick up the face of God in the dust. The absolute light men who were the principals in last night's incident? surrounds me. The absolute all light in all light rises up Here on..." beyond the livid dust. The absolute peace. The absolute “Yes sir, last night." peace and love, the absolute love of life in every life in “Here, on the airbase, or off the airbase?" every... “Here, sir." “Take this man to the hospital unit at Long Binh “And did you pick up your rash hereon the airbase?" Jail." “Yes sir, dogdamn it, get off," the slimy filthy things “Yes sir." swarming all over my arms. Must be the amphetamines. “Soldier, restrain yourself or go on sick call." “I’m sorry, sir. Do you mind if I smoke? All this has made me very nervous," and he waves his hand, sure. J ust a toke, just a teensy loke of the pure dust to take the edge off, just a teensy-weensy toke, just a little bit of the dust in my filter cigarette. The clerk walks in and hands the major a manila folder. Just a toke, yes sir. “Yes sir, PC’s not a fighting man, always a lover boy. Can’t stand the sight of blood, not that there was any..."

59 S u m m e r -Fa II, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration V o lu m e 4 NumbcR J-4

P o et r y by RENNy ChRisTophER The Americans in Ca Mau eat tin-skinned food play prostitute roulette clap Passing Through the Tennis Courts on Campus syph rigid love with rifles under the bed I take a stutter-step, half-halt. The people race bicycles on Sundays A wire stretches across my path— children play soccer on the parade ground filament broken loose from a net. pigs walk the streets alone but 1 step carefully over GIs ride 6 to a fast jeep not disturbing it keeping an eye out for more. In the forest of U Minh 500 pound bombs fall 5 miles The tripwires and shake the yellow palm-thatched huts and boobytraps and the yellowed stucco houses in the stories of the men I've known and the yellow tent O Club in Ca Mau mark my landscape. 1 have never walked point Soldiers hunt communist water buffalo on night patrol with quad .50s and infra-red never lain in ambush. they scream howitzers at suspicious rice This is not a hostile country. but one bullet makes a helicopter a shotgunned duck But their stories enfold me, one rocket trips the man-blind radar make my eyes and feet wary off its legs and the Americans leave of walking familiar ground. and the women sweep after them

My own wars have been different, face to face. The night the guy grabbed me, Notes for the Veteran’s War Protest started to pull me into the shadows, the night the guy tried to get into Ralph: concerning plans for the local march, my car at a stoplight. the following: The morning my husband shoved me into the wall. 1. Saw the weary demonstration in Washington, the burning faces of our sad boy warriors It is easier to imagine innocent wires throwing their medals at the president. to be booby traps than to imagine men passing by 2. Think we should emulate but not copy, so: as the enemy. when the delegation arrives at the state capitol first read the petition: This is not a hostile country. “We are not afraid to kill. We are sorry we murdered our souls. We did as told but we learned howto say NO! Stop it. Or we will stop you. Don't resist. You can’t stop Renny Christopher is a Contributing Editor to Viet Nam the ghosts you made of us." Generation. Next, have those who lost legs crawl forward and neatly stack them. Then bowl the skull of your best killed buddy down the aisle.

Finally, have the blind push the quadruplegics forward PoETRy by Ho race C o Iem an (they will have knives in their teeth to give to the legislators to use on themselves). We leave. If they don't use them we come back. In Ca Mau Horace In Ca Mau the women sweep the canal with their oars PS. Save the instructions for your grandkids. They'll on the way to the floating fruit market come in handy. bananas pineapples grapelels with husks stacked in slender sampans

6 0 Suimimcr-FaU, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIume 4 NuivibcR 5-4

Still Life with Dead Hippie Kent State. May 4, 1970

It’s all in the point of view. And did you ever notice how that statue Suppose you got your down there in Columbus sophored out sophomore of the used car salesman slumped on the sidewalk toting those forged registrations in the foreground. past the Capitol building, Never made it to the bar. looks just like Governor Rhodes? His buddy’s embarrassed & his girl’s outraged. No fun tonight, Hon!

Or, maybe there's this feminist witch exercising her anger on this newly stricken MCP I don't suppose I’ll ever forget while the stunned bastard in bell bottoms looks for reasons. the guy in the Vet Center who’d started dreaming about those hootches he used to crawl into It could be a pink-faced VC broad in the dark and cut throats and the visits he gets trying to grasp the life when the President passes through town that’s just flown from and the “mystery'' babies your unfavorite dumb son. people's old ladies kept having and And she has no right the divorce papers they'd get after she'd moved, to cry out in plain sight, sold the house, and bought a new car and the way that to be so full of pain. peckerwood was almost too ashamed to say “Thanks” You have to blame her after I’d saved his life for the cluck’s bad luck. or the parties where everybody brought a fifth and nobody left till all the soldiers were dead Of course what it was, was these and of Bear wanting to shoot the lieutenant dirty, rotten, vicious whore kids— (which wasn't a bad idea but he was standing around watching’ too nice a kid to have to do the time) the overarmed, undertrained so I took it away from him or National Guard about to go wild. the night they brought the VC in And yeah, fools, some (labor detail chunking rocks & slogans & curses. on their way to the Chieu Hoi Center Full of dope, sex, books, & unAmerican for some R&R) and antiwar ideas coming out of class, nobody told us they were coming sitting on & smoking grass. so the bolts going back on the 16s Reminding you! sounded like a cricket convention that something’s wrong as I scoped the skinny fuckers out real good & someone has to do something. So, and not one came up to my shoulder it's their fault that or had any real meat on him it's not their fault. and I could have punched them all out real easy and they looked just like the hired help Then we all find out but they weren't scared and just kept there were no snipers watching me watching them until one laughed and or syphilitic coeds put a V of fingers recruiting for the communists & and then a thumb and forefinger to his mouth so that terrified child was just I tossed them a canteen and some Say-Lems a teenage runaway. and we all smoked and Barely old enough to bleed I didn't even ask for the pack back but just the right age to understand the deed.

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The Plot to Assassinate the Statue of Liberty A P e o p Ie No t S t r o n q : V ietnamese Im ag es of t Iie iNdochiNA W ar They were delinquents—acting too late. Going after the old whore like brave young vandals, Alan Farrell, Modern Languages, Hampden-Sydney acting the way you do when you're scared and angry, College. VA, 23943, 804-223-6201 breaking something no one will miss. I guess I had shuffled under the huge gate of rough- And she was always standing there hewn logs that guarded entry to our Special Forces where they could see her. camp in the highlands of Cong Turn province along the Needing deodorant under at least one arm. Laotian frontier a hundred times before I noticed the Doing as much harm as slinking could, words cut into coarse planks lashed together above my as much good as prayer would. head. Hruh Hong, it announced. And though my thirty- And wearing herself out just standing there, some so dang strikers wore shoulder patches bearing a wearing the same moldy green dress day after day. mad hornet, it was some time still before I had the gate And just standing there, inscription translated to me by one of my suppl&tifs : flaunting her diseased, contagious s e lf- “maiso guepe-la," he told me. Hornet hive. I suppose it ruined by that social illness of hers. made little enough difference to me under what emblem 1 should fight, but my Anglo-Saxon sense of degree was So why not go over to Liberty's Island reassured when—at the orders of the new American (they put her there to keep it from spreading) commander—the scowling hornets disappeared to make why no go over there and blind her like justice is, way for another shoulder patch that sported a leaping rob her like hope does? and eminently more martial black panther, bounding through an arch of winged parachutes, lightening bolts, What could she do but crossed rifles, and the rest of that stern panoply of war. whine what all failures mumble But I did not forget the fascination of a people for I should have been something insects, tiny creatures: fierce, strong, communal, I should have been something that meant something indistinguishable, relentless, implacable. I should have stood for something “The Ants are a people not strong," says Proverbs, And not just stood there, 30:25. “Yet they prepare their meat in the summer...The in that crappy dress, locusts have no king, yet go they forth by their bands: The looking like a big tired turd, spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' acting like she didn't know every body palaces.“These “things which are little upon the earth...are has to flush their own shit. exceeding wise" but do not appear to have imparted their wisdom to the West. The French, for instance, always You wonder why any body would have ever thought of the Vietnamese—scornfully—as ants: fourmis. paid good money for her or bothered to try Jean Larteguy's novels, long the public face of France’s to bash her head in. Dumb kids, stealing an empty purse. exasperated hopes toward the colony (a pregnant word in She never had nothing no way. this context), have recourse to this image: the long Dumb kids, trying to kill a corpse. columns of tiny, faceless, straining figures who dragged Let it whimper itself to death. guns, rice bags, artillery rounds through the jungle in filiform legions. In his well-known Centurions, which Horace Coleman currently lives in Long Beach. Viet Nam begins, by the bye, comparing a column of French Generation plans to publish a book o f his verse, and prisoners wending its way up out of the valley at Dien hopes that he will become a regular contributor to the Bien Phu, to "caterpillars in solemn procession" (1) journal. Larteguy shows us a bo-doi, typical Vietnamese soldier:

This sad little man. floating like a ghost in his too-big fatigues...was droning on about Truth with the blank look of a prophet.... the nightmare of ants. He was one of the antennas of the monstrous brain that wanted to change the world to a civilization of insects, locked in their certainty and their efficiency (36).

Larteguy permits himself a number of tirades of the sort:

All these ants seemed featureless... on their faces could be read no expression at all, not even one of those elemental feelings that break through

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the passivity of Asiatic features: fear, joy, hate, reside rather in silent, impersonal, and collective anger. Nothing. One single will pressed them all acts of submergence, endurance, andeflacement: toward a common and mysterious goal...This anonymous, done in the darkness, in the face of frenzied activity by sexless insects seemed immense odds, but always tiny acts, tiny bites if directed from a distance, as if, somewhere in this you like. colony, some huge queen was to be found, a sort of monstrous central brain which served as the Curiously enough, though I do not find the ant image collective consciousness of these ants. (29) in a superficial review of their writings, both Vo Nguyen Giap in his Military Art of People's War and Truong The intervening text, furthermore, is larded with the Nhu Tang in his Viet Cong Memoir speak less of what we same sort of insect-related vocabulary—as are others of would call combat and battle than of the elaborate his Indochina novels, notably Les tambours de bronze behind-the-scenes network (Tang calls it tellingly a “web") (Bronze Drums ), set mutatis mutandis in Laos: wrought by insect-like battalions of “workers." “We march grouUlement, grouiller, foisonner, fourmiere, termitiere, all day bent under the weight of our packs,” cites Tang colonne, saper, ronger. Larteguy assembles here, of course, a whole subliminal machinery of racial stereotype (Edith In the heat and humidity we are forced to stop Cresson calls Japanese Jourm is last summer: often to rest and get our breath back...we climb subsequent flap) and even sexual, as one scene reveals in mountain faces...the group continues to march. which a bo-doi speaks to the French prisoners, recounting We must have faith in our struggle and in our how as a student in France he enjoyed the jardin du country to endure these tests of suffering and Luxembourg and in particular a young woman who pain... (241). danced there. Asked to loosen Captain Glatigny's ropes, however, the young Vietnamese turns away. Larteguy Giap, for his part, recounts the ant-like labors of his notes: troops around Dien Bien Phu, the ferrying of materiel, the digging of tunnels and moving of earth, the patience and He had become an ant once again and lurched biding of time: off in the thick mud. The anthill wouldn't let him loose: he would never again see the Luxembourg Our troops had to dig a vast network of Gardens in the spring, where girls with dancing trenches, from the neighboring hills to the plain, hips and swirling skirts tote their schoolbooks... to encircle the central subsector and cut it (30). off... (135)... these tactics demanded of us firmness and a spirit of resolution... (149) ...day and night The reeeeeeeeeeeal indictment: insects cannot share the hundreds of thousands of porters and young earthy lubricity of pleasure-loving Europeans. volunteers crossed passes and forded rivers...from What is less clear is how the Vietnamese saw the plains to the mountains, on roads and paths, themselves, though scrutiny of Vietnamese stories, on rivers and streams, everywhere there was the parables, and other accounts of their War, destined for same animation... (159). public consumption—through translation— or otherwise, seems to suggest that the French metaphor was not This is, as Tang allows, the travail of a “veritable army of without its parallel in the Vietnamese mind as well. A workers" (241). Giap speaks of the “wonderful trenches," corpus of exists, didactic and citing timeliness and patience, enormous numbers of hortatory without a doubt, but in which certain virtues workers freighting indescribably heavy loads, tunnel are extolled and citizens urged to follow models of behavior complexes like the famous one at Cu Chi, all insect-like (submersion of self, sacrifice, endurance, patience, formic of course. indifference to pain) which limn a sort of moral model. Le Ly Hayslip, whose When Heat>en and Earth Studying such art is not without its risks, as Mary Changed Places is hardly socialist art, returns McCarthy noted in Hanoi, speaking principally of “visual nonetheless to this image. Hayslip, whose gracious a rt": retrieval of Vietnamese folklore and folkways relies often on proverbs and legends, quotes her father's observation ...hortatory art has the troubling property of that “god's creatures had two basic ways to survive...” resembling all other hortatory art, which makes it difficult to distinguish, for instance fascist ...either by great speed and power like antelope architecture from Stalinist architecture or and tigers: orby strength ofnumbers, like insects. socialist realist painting from Roman Catholic Indeed we Vietnamese had a saying: Con kiencong oleographs... is no exception to con vua —by sticking together the tiny ants can this rule (91). carry the elephant. The American elephant could rage and stomp the Vietnamese anthill, but time The picture which emerges—courage in battle is and the weight of numbers guaranteed that it touted though narration rarely enough describes would eventually be the ants, not the elephant, actual combat—is one of resilience and patience who danced on the bones of the victims (222). rather than daring. Heroic qualities appear to

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The ant, however, does not alone bear the metaphoric as Johnson for reasons handily evident, but the F-105 is burden in such accounts. Other insects, laying claim to a mouche verte, with associated verbs like piquer, sijjler, identical virtues of solidarity, diligence, persistence, and bourdonner. The genre is familiar enough, and we shan't resilience furnish the exemplum for conduct, the be surprised to find our pilots on leave, discovering the rationale for victory, related with a pride that is hardly suffering—and the determination—o f the other front, the ant-like, be it noted. Ly Thu Ho, a woman author who has home front, though what might be foreseeable scenes of penned in French several memoirs of her war, recalls in girl friends and lovers remain dispiritingly, well...pudic. a 1969 novel Au milieu du carrefour [At the One of the pilots, Luong, reflects on the presence of Crossroads), the labor gangs responsible for patching up Americans in the South o f his land. He has heard of after American bombing attacks: serveuses de the, taxi girls, epouses a la semaine, corrupted by decadent values of the outlanders. “It is not The tasks were meticulously divided among the enough for them to sow death, destruction, and misery inhabitants...day and night this swarm of bees among us, but they have to go and soil the thing we hold rebuilt cratered roads and destroyed bridges...all most precious..." the crews of workers competed in ingenious ways to get the job done in the quickest time Hundreds of thousands of informers, agents, possible... (89). swindlers, and spies...have swooped down on our South like a horde of locusts. They brought She goes so far, in one lyrical passage, as to fuse the with them misery and those handfuls of paper insect with its human counterpart, an odd and rare they call dollars. They have driven thousands of reference to mystical religion. It is Van, who speaks to girls to sell themselves... (120). Lang, for whom he has sentiments as they walk through the forest of the highlands near Da Lat: The locust is , of course, not a useful insect, nor one that teaches lessons. Likewise the beetle. So, such Sometimes I think I am infinitely small inside a creatures can supply the metaphor for an enemy who huge church where the nave is sparkling with shares appearance or characteristic with them. Just as stars and instead of a hymn... I hear the murmur the devouring Americans and their cohorts seem locusts, of human voices mingling with the single shrill so the French, whom the Vietnamese see wearing helmets, chirr of thousands of cicadas rubbing together become scarabees. This is Huu Mai in a story called Le their brittle, diaphanous wings. And in the midst drapeau-repere (The Signal Flag): “Observing the of this fairyland there seems to rise up, louder enemy from under cover we see in his trench system the and louder, a melodious chorus of our traditional steel helmets—like great beetles—bobbing continu­ songs... (155). ously" (15). Equally unpalatable as a model is the behavior of the mouche or fly. The Americans, in Tran Mai Nam’s Humanity, smallnessof stature, nature, religion, tradition, tale of war De Hue au 17ieme parallele (From Hue to insect. the 17th Parallel), “would sweep down on us like a As if advocacy of insect-like values were not enough, swarm of flies whenever they heard a shot fired. How as if fusion through the insect-cantor into some sort of could that be? Weren’t they afraid of death? But all the national gnosis were not enough, we see on more than comrades who came in from the next village said the same one occasion, the ant itself sustain human activity as thing: ‘A swarm of flies’" (135). “How can they ’swarm like nourishment: “We ate,” relates Ho Phuong in an excerpt flies?'Why aren’t they afraid to die?" wonders the guerillero from his novel La mer appelle [The Sea Calls) “Roots Phong. “Is it because there are so many of them?" Turns and wild grass, snails and red ants." (180) “Come on," out that the Yankee is not “afraid of death" because he is says Dinh the Scrounger: “It’s vitamin C, huh?" “The swaddled in body armor, cannot be killed by bullets. But soldiers take a few ants between their fingers and begin Phong is determined: “All you gotta do is swat hard." And to chew..." the account goes on: “A bitter taste...a little bit sure enough, in a carefully-crafted ambush, “the enemy tart." (175) “We washed it down with urine," remembers dropped on us like a swarm, just as the comrades told us the narrator. “And to make matters worse," —as if they would. But they were nothing but flies after all. All matters get much worse than eating red ants and urine— you gotta do is swat hard. Just like the other kind of fly he notes dispassionately, “even the urine tasted fiat" these flies are afraid..." (154). (180). These stories are not shy about plumping a relentless Ha Noi, the brain of the immense colony, is— and heavy-handed moral in the middle of things, virtually naturally enough—a nest, or so it appears in an unusual always the same, reflection of the abnegation of self to 1966 novel called Front du d el (Sky Front) by one which a people is committed. Oanh Tan recounts the Nguyen DinhThi, the tale of North Vietnamese MIG pilots Days and Nights o f Con Co (Les jours et les nuits de and the little seen air war from a Vietnamese viewpoint. Con Co) in a collection called simply if tellingly L'epreuve “Along the crowded streets, houses pressed against one du feu (The Test o f Fire). He notes that two young another," claims Thi, “like the individual cells in a students, Sau and Soi, “should have been in classes at beehive, built century upon century, around the tiny the university. But hatred for the ...aggressor has made Lake of the Redeemed Sword. We are here, oh Ha Noi" us all abandon joyfully even the most promising of our (92). The aircraft buzzing in air furnish an occasion for individual plans. Our young people know that no plan predictable images o f flying insects: all planes are known shall come to anything if the country loses its freedom."

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(32) In Nguyen Thi Van Anh's Ces enfants et les Tu, Ngo Tat. guand la lampe s'etdnt. Hanoi: Fleuve histoires qui les concement (.These Children and the Rouge, 1983. Stories about Them) a young lover tells his girlfriend: Vien, Nguyen Khac, ed.. L ’echec americain. Hanoi: “I’ll be back in seven years with a glorious future and a Etudes Vietnamiennes, 1968. career to look forward to. You'll always be in my heart. _____. Litterature et liberation nationale au Sud- Then we'll have a home and live in peace” (75). A seven- Vietnam. Hanoi: Etudes Vietnamiennes, 1967. year cycle of denial, followed by generation and work. The Yeager, Jack A.. The Vietnamese Novel in French. life of the insect. Kien , say the Vietnamese, "the ant,"— Hanover, N.H.: New England University Press, 1987. tha lau cung day to—“takes her time but fills her nest." To a culture of Europeans for whom strength is the ox— "strong as an ox"—the Vietnamese, who have oxen of SEMIOTIC AN

By Phillipe Hunt, Comparative Literature, Yale University, Works Cited New Haven, CT, 06520 Due, Anh. Hon Dat. Hanoi: Editions Langues Etrangeres, It is possible to teach that which you do 1968. not know. —Joseph Jacoto Duras, Marguerite. L'amant. Paris: Editions Minuit, 1988. Gioi, Doan, etal.. Une orange ala main. Hanoi: Editions Alone of all the animals, man has aptly Langue Etrangere, 1985. been called anthropos, since he examines Hayslip, Le Ly. When Heaven and Earth Changed that which he has seen. —Plato Places. New York: Doubleday. 1989. Ho, Ly Thu. Au milieu du carrefour. Paris: Editions But does he actually do it? —Anonymous Peyronnet, 1969. _____. Le mirage de la paix. Paris: Promedart, 1986. Hoan, Nguyen Cong. L'impasse. Hanoi: Fleuve Rouge, Thmenh Chey, a poor, orphaned child, decides to take 1983 (1938). revenge on the local capitalist. He easily outsmarts the Khue, Le Minh. Lointaines etoiles. Hanoi: Editions merchant, who foists him on the king, whereupon he Langues Etrangeres, 1973. promptly outwits the entire court, and, albeit with more Larteguy, Jean. Les Centurions. Paris: Presses de la difficulty, a first batch of wily Chinese. Having been Cite, 1961. banned to the provinces, he outfoxes the locals, then the _____. Un million de dollars le Viet. Paris: Raoul Solar, executioners who are supposed to put an end to his 1965. career. The Chinese come back, thinking as everybody Lefevre, Kim. La retour a la saison des pluies. Paris: does that Thmenh Chey has died, and that Cambodia is Bernard Barrault, 1990. up for grabs. Chey, disguised asabonze, totally outguesses _____. Metisse blanche. Paris: Bernard Barrault. 1989. them. Having saved his country, he then saves the king McCarthy, Mary. Hanoi. New York: Harcourt, Brace & he had so often ridiculed, by seeming to give him his World. 1968. secret, thereby decisively weakening the mandarins. The Mai, Huu, et al.. Le drapeau repere : recits de la tales of the exploits of Thmenh Chey. known to most resistance vietnamienne. Hanoi: Editions Langues Cambodians, are the subject of the following address, Etrangeres, 1964. given in Phnom Penh by a Belgian to a Khmer audience. _____. Portrait du combattant vietnamien. Hanoi: Editions Langues Etrangeres, 1984. Captatio beneuolentiae, and other preliminaries Mai, Tran Thuy, et al.. La couleur de la mer et autres nouvelles. Hanoi: Fleuve Rouge, 1985. I am well aware how presumptuous it is for me to pretend Nam, Tran Mai. De Hue au 17ieme parallele. Hanoi: to teach you anything at all about a Khmer literary text, Editions Langues Etrangeres, 1967. when in addition to other handicaps (which can be Nhu, Huynh Quang. The Land I lost. New York: Harper summarized as an ignorance of Khmer histoiy, and in & Row, 1982. particular the histories of institutions and mentalities, of Quoc, Nguyen Ai (Ho Chi Minh). Le Proces de la literature and of Buddhism), I do not even know the colonisation franqaise. Paris: Librairie du Travail, language of the text. And, to make matters worse, I have 1923. chosen one of the founding texts of your culture, a text Stetler, Russell, ed.. Selected Writings of General Vo which all of you know well, which you quote incessantly, Nguyen Giap. New York: Monthly Review Press, much more than we ever quote Hugo or Racine, or even 1970. the Bible.2 By way of defense, I will only mention three Trang, Truong Nhu. A Viet Cong Memoir. New York: things: on the one hand, Thmenh Chey (TC) is precisely Random House, 1985. a text which questions the validity of knowledge, of Thi, Nguyen Dinh. Front du del. Paris: Juliard, 1968. authority and of tradition. Also, a different angle, coming Tu. Mai Thi. La femme au Vietnam. Hanoi: Editions from another "tradition," often allows us to notice better Langue Etrangere, 1978. certain aspects which too great a familiarity would tend

65 Summer-Fail, 1992 ViET Naim G eneration VolUME 4 NuMbER 5-4 to obfuscate. Finally, my approach will largely be internal, symbolic reason.15 The former designates an activity immanent (not based on cultural, institutional or other which is entirely oriented towards the accomplishment of con-texts), and will not rely on the detailed texture of the a goal or of a particular interest, towards acquiring some text (I will not propose a subtle stylistic analysis). I should personal or group advantage (this arithmetic of means add that I have read both the Monod translation,3 reissued and ends clearly has nothing to do with Kantian ethics), by Cedoreck in 1985, and also a translation, as literal as while the latter represents the production of meaning, of possible, which a friend has been so kind as to do for me, culture (language and ideologies). It soon becomes starting from another version, which is currently used in apparent that TC (contrary to e.g. A Lev) only marginally schools in Cambodia. I will therefore occasionally strives to get rich, or to acquire actual power. His activity underline some of the significant differences between therefore essentially takes place in the realm of what those two versions. However, mine has not been the work Sahlins calls the symbolic, and which I prefer to call the of a philologist, an ethno-poetician or an “oralist": my aim semiotic—more precisely, it revolves around the question has not been (nor could it have been) to compare all the of who has power over that realm (hence the word versions4 which have been transcribed, and more or less "agonistic" which refers to that aspect of fighting). rewritten, on the basis of decisions which were more or less technical, but always also more or less ideological. I don’t know anything more about this problem than what Of females, women, strumpets and usurperesses Vandy Kaonn says in his Reflexion sur la litterature khmere.5 Of the version (or group of versions) entitled A Before I move on to the main object of this talk, viz. the Chey I have only read one brief extract, one episode, struggle for power of language, over language, through which was collected by Leclere in his Cambodge. Contes, language, I should like to briefly mention two points, the legendes et jatakas.6 Nor shall I attempt a systematic one of a rather thematic nature, the other more comparison with comparable tales (featuring a wily narratological. The first point concerns the place of character of modest origin, often an orphan, who outwits women in the narrative. A very modest place, in the M the rich and the powerful) such as are found in Cambodia version, since only two or three women put in an itself (Sophea Tonsai, A Lev , and numerous tales in appearance: essentially the mother (very briefly indeed), which a wife outwits her husband...7), in the Indo- and the wife. The former, though she is not explicitly Chinese cultural area (Xieng-Meng in Laos, Si arraigned for her stupidity, contrary to A Lev’s mother,16 Thanoncai in Central Thailand,8 Sug kham tu in is narratively defined by the fact that she gets tricked, Northern Thailand,9 Plaang Thooy and other Khmu which trick actually sets the whole story moving. She tales,10 Trang Quynh, Trang Lon and others in Viet produces a prophetic dream, has a professional interpreter Nam*'), or outside that area (I am thinking in particular explain it to her, and fails to ask herself any questions of the Roman de Renart, and of Till Uilenspieghel,12 when the hermeneut, though he has indeed understood both very much part of my (Belgian) culture, but also of the dream (not a major feat in this case), proffers a blatant the various legends/(hi)stories of bandits stealing from misreading: TC will be a slave, not a great man. The the rich and giving to the poor, such as Robin Hood, Twm dream will come true, however, but only after a number Sion Cati, Mandrin...13). Even lesswilll try tofindoutwho of tribulations which seem to prove the dishonest (or influenced whom, whether this whole corpus originates unscrupulously time-serving) hora right. After Thmenh in India, in China or elsewhere, or whether it is Chey's birth, his mother no longer plays any part, except autochthonous everywhere (in which case their similarities that she tries in vain to dissuade her son from seemingly would be homologies, not a matter of sources and accomplishing the false interpretation of the dream, influences), or any combination of these extreme when he wants to hire himself off as an indebted slave to hypotheses. the rich merchant, the sethey (whereas TC only wants to In order to steer clear of the presumptuousness do this in order to wreak revenge on the sethey, hence to mentioned earlier, 1 will only formulate some proposals refute the false prediction). We should note that TC's for reading, sketch some interpretive schemes, ask some father has disappeared without trace: even his absence questions to the text, hoping that the discussion which doesn't deserve any mention. However, it could be argued will follow will allow us to develop certain points, or to that the sethey (and conceivably, also TC's later correct certain inflexions.14 First of all, I would like to opponents) plays the part of a substitute, of a (bad) father explain a little why I changed the original title of this figure. This role is particularly apparent when the sethey talk—the talk itself will provide a fuller explanation of the opposes a comparison (more-less, a lot-a little: a finite change. I had suggested something like "Practical and number) to the absolute superlative (infinity) of TC’s theoretical reason in Thmenh Chey." This now seems desire for food/ for salary. It is possible, indeed required, unsatisfactory to me because those terms almost to measure the value ofTC's returning to the sethey's wife automatically suggest Kant's concepts of theoretical and the shuttle she has lost: to a given (finite) job corresponds practical pure reason. Now, the least that can be said is a given (finite) salary. We are bound to underline, however that pure reason, whether theoretical or practical, only great our disapproval of the inequality of fortune between plays a role in our text by its absence, a real absence the sethey and TC's mother (again, this is a comparative, which is it must be said occasionally marked by a Active, the ratio is a finite number), that TC has put to the simulacral, purely rhetorical presence. On the other sethey's wife a demand which was hardly reasonable, hand, we might have used the distinction drawn by the indeed limitless. Being a woman, she is not able to anthropologist Marshall Sahlins between practical and counter the inexperienced trickster, so it is left to the

6 6 Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIume 4 NuiVlbER 5-4 setheyhimself to, rather legitimately, setalaw: enjoyment Also, palace women play an important role in two has to be limited. But then TC does not give him, and will additional sections, not present in M, and in a modified not give anyone, the right to dictate any law whatsoever version of the final sequence. In all three cases, the to him. It would not in my opinion be entirely legitimate women play an entirely negative role— more precisely, a to link this episode with Marx’s conception that the scatological one. In the first section, TC talks about the proletariat, not having anything, is everything: the main anus of these women, probably to denounce their difference is that here, in this early episode, everything is profession: they are courtesans, and as such live by their taking place within the realm of having, without any shift charms, their body. In the second sequence, the king from having to being.17 orders his concubines to defecate at TC’s house, and in After childhood, women disappear from TC’s life, to the final sequence, the husbands who were ridiculed by reappear only once he has successfully undergone his TC when he was alive send their wives to his tomb, to trials with the sethey, the king and the Chinese scholars. desecrate it by their excretions. These are very gross The king then wants to give him as a reward (women as episodes, but no more so than that of the bonze’s face, or objects) one of the women of the palace (one of a series), thatofTC’s “second face” (his bottom), present in M. They as his maid or his concubine, but he refuses, and in this mostly stand out by their extreme, ferocious misogyny: refusal shows once more his right to name (i.e. his right the women appear as parasitic, nasty, totally devoid of to the use of language in its power to institute): these are autonomy: they are mere playthings to the king or to their mere females, not women. He alone can find, or rather husbands. And they have to face the consequences of the institute, constitute a woman. He finally meets her. Her actions they were forced to carry out: those who obey are name is Suos-Dey: Hello,18 and she is a woman marked wrong, whereas, as we shall see, those who interpret with signs, a text-woman.19 She is the first woman who (those who pervert orders) are right. opposes him, who shows herself to be his match in a verbal joust of questions, of riddles (something which not A nosegay of tales, or a novel? a single man had managed!). What matters in the context of the purely subordinate function of women in the story, These additional (interpolated?) episodes allow us to say is that TC once married is in no way different, less of a something about the structure of Thmenh Chey, about solitary hero, than before20—even though in another sense the economy of the narrative. It goes without saying that he is never alone (he clearly needs an audience, he is an the structure is episodic, picaresque,22 that the narrative actor). His last adventures do not involve his wife, and he is an entirely linear stringing together of episodes, of is only seen with her when he is in articulo mortis. sequences which all share the same protagonist, TC— Women in this story are largely reduced to two interrelated this is true even in the initial and final episodes, where TC roles, those of Mother Earth, of Magna Mater, who first is not physically present. The episodes are simply delivers man into this world, then takes him back into her successive, without any anachrony (analepsis or bosom. Between those two bosoms, man, and man alone, prolepsis), or simultaneity. However, the structure is not holds the stage, with his tribulations, his labors (his as simple as that of Sophea Tonsai23 for example: here travails). Of course, this entails that the time before and the structure is not simply a matter of stringing, but also after the performance belongs to women: a woman of steps.24 The adventures encountered by TC are dreaming of the son she will have, a woman protecting the increasingly difficult and dangerous, and they take him tomb, the memory of her husband—two women who are further and further away from his birth place: hence a entirely preoccupied, defined by a man. On the other double stepping structure. There is some form of a loop hand, TC has no more children than he has a father: we at the end, for though the house where he dies is not the will come back to this when we deal with knowledge, and house where he was born, he again has a very limited field with the handing down of knowledge in our narrative. of operation—and has to rely on a woman. Within this All I have said, as mentioned, only concerns the M stepping structure, a certain number of macro-sequences version. In the version used in Cambodia at present, and can be discerned, and there is some evolution from one in that by Bitard, women appear more often, and there macro-sequence to the next, as well as within each are a greater number of them. First, the hora is absent, macro-sequence, from one meso-sequence to the next. and his wife usurps his role. To this first deception, Let us make this clearer: we can consider that the text, arrogating to herself a power to interpret which only which in spite of its rather rigorous structure I would recognized professionals can have, she adds another, the hesitate to call a novel, after the introductory sequence / one which in the M version was ascribed to the hora. dream+interpretation+shuttle/, starts with a macro­ Having interpreted correctly a dream similar to the one in sequence /in the service of the sethey/, followed by a M (but adding immediacy to totality in the enjoyment of macro-sequence /in the service of the king/. There then desire) as forecasting that TC will be king (a grander, or occurs the first Chinese incursion, with its consequences simply more precise, prediction than in M21), she utters forTC, then the second Chinese incursion, thenTC's stay an interpretation which is the exact opposite of the in China, then his return to Cambodia. Each of these six meaning, with again a time dimension, absent from M: TC macro-sequences can be subdivided into generally three will remain a slave all his life. King becomes slave, meso-sequences, which are themselves made up of one immediately becomes forever: the contradiction is not the or more sequences. One example: the /sethey/ macro­ same in the two cases. The text moreover explicitly states, sequence includes the meso-sequences /court/, /field/ in a narratorial “intrusion", that this interpretation is the and /house/—-the latter two in inverse order in C. Each contrary of the true one. meso-sequence comprises in this case two contrary

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sequences, and each meso-sequence constitutes a will come through (version C) - or from an entirely smooth demotion, when compared to the one just before it.25 The narrative, in which the adventures simply come one after same holds in the other macro-sequences: they all start the other, without any explanation as to their meaning or with a meso-sequence at the court, followed by removal/ sequentiality (this is essentially the case with Sophea demotion, and often by worse removal/demotion. In the Tonsai, a more “primitive", less unified and novel-like macro-sequence /in the service of the king/, we have: collection of stories than our two versions of TC29). court—outside—not visible; in the macro- sequence / Chinese incursion 1/ we find: court—exile to the Tonle Named, or nameless Sap>—executioners—monastery. And so on. So we encounter on the one hand a continuous 1 don’t wish to go into a detailed narratological analysis, progression from each macro-sequence to the next, a rise and will only add one more point, concerning characters. (in terms of the social rank of the adversary and of the Thmenh Chey, or Thnenh Chey (or Dhnanjay), is the only difficulty of the trial): confrontation with the sethey— one in the whole story to be named. We could even say confrontation with the king—simple Chinese riddles— that the story is nothing but the development of the difficult Chinese riddles—confrontation with the Chinese meaning of that name—-Chey means “victory"—as if this king—(re)foundalion/legitimation of Khmer monarchy. were an etiological narrative, aimed at providing the On the other hand, inside each macro-sequence, we have reason why he was given that name.30 Though his wife is a regression, a descent, and it is at the lowest point that named in the episode of their meeting—their respective there is, each time, a recovery, viz. a return to the court, names constitute one of the riddles—she henceforth which leads to the starting of the next macro-sequence. becomes TC's wife, no more no less. The other characters This logic, another double (contradictory) stepping are never named, and are only identified by their social structure, would seem to echo the general scheme of and/or professional function: the king, the sethey, the Hegelian dialectic, as manifested, especially, in his hora, the samdech chauvea. the mohatlock. the amat... Phanomenologie des Geistes, but I can’t here pursue Some of them are not even individualized: “four sooth­ that intriguing homology.26 sayers", "the dignitaries", "the concubines". And yet, What this rather rigorous structure does indicate, is nomination is an essential symbolic operation in this that it is impossible to tamper with the macro- or meso- text, as we shall see when we talk about TC as interpreter. structures, or with their order, without jeopardizing the Names are not the only type of index or informant to coherence of the narrative. But it is often possible to add, be in short supply in this text. The story tells us nothing, subtract, or invert the order of sequences, and the same or almost nothing, about time (and duration), or about applies, at a lower level, to functions and to indices/ the places in which the action unfolds. There is actually informants. This is indeed what a comparison between no description at all in the text, by which I mean that no the two versions M and C will show. At the level of meso- descriptive element is autonomized. When things are sequences, there is only one difference: the inversion named, or provided with one or two descriptive features, field—house in the first macro-sequence. At the level of this is never done merely in order to establish a spatio- sequences, we find three adjunctions: the two involving temporal, or a cultural frame for the action, but only scatological females, and also, in the same macro­ because those details have an immediate narrative sequence, a /buffalo fight/ episode which clearly functionality, or a symbolic import. I will only mention duplicates the cock fight, and could therefore be dropped.27 one example, in version C. TC. confronted with four But of course there are also differences inside sequences, Chinese soothsayers (this is the second incursion) asks some of them interesting. In general—not always—Version the king for four mohatlocks, four boxes of stylets, four C is more explicit, gives more reasons, explanations, square boards, four small jars. It seems obvious that this motivations, while at the same time it gives less repeated figure does not correspond to any narrative development to transitions between episodes: a bizarre necessity (the riddle would have worked just as well with combination of late traits and of archaic traits. Moreover, any other number), and I don't think that this can be a some of the explanations are different (e.g. the king’s reality effect,31 so it has to have symbolic value. Solange reaction to the boat-elephant: in one case he laughs at the Thierry (Op. cit.: 86) talks about the importance of absurdity of the apparition, in the other he is reduced to numbers in the definition of characters, even when they silence by TC's "logicar explanation), or they are given in are not named, but her explanations don't seem entirely a different manner (narrator’s intervention in C instead of relevant here, since the four in TC are in no way TC's interior monologue, or dialogue). However, this differentiated. The presence of four soothsayers may be decision to give more or fewer explanations, and to give related to the fact that two had not done the job the first them through the narrator or through a character (whether time, and perhaps TC responds with four times four protagonist or walk-on, through dialogue or monologue), (numbers, and mathematics, had played an important though it shows itself at the level of a sequence or a mere role in the first fight of riddles). There may be more to it, function, has implications for the entire narrative.28 A as four is a classic magical number, though I don't know narrative in which the narrator can enter the heads of his whether that is the case in buddhist or “pre”-buddhist characters (version M) is very different (more "modern’’, in Khmer culture. At any rate, according to Chevalier and the XIXc sense... though perhaps not more contemporary, Gheerbrant's Dictionnaire des symboles, four, and "postmodern") from a narrative in which the narrator sixteen, are sacred numbers in the Vedic Hymns, where always has to “intrude" to make sure that the message they symbolize totality.32.

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Never trust the lit critters not do it ex officio, on someone's orders or for a salary, and on the other hand he is not trying to (fore)close a I now come to the main object of this talk: the motif of question, but rather to give it maximum aperture. hermeneutics, of the constitution and decipherment of meaning, a motif which pervades the whole narrative. Variegated and versatile Indeed, the whole story is full of texts, of discourse, of reality constituted as discourse,33 and these texts- Later on in the narrative, TC will be the interpreter par within-the-text are obscure, ambiguous or enigmatic, excellence, and though he is repeatedly confronted with hence call for interpretation, whether in words, in actions counter-interpreters, these will never (after his earliest or in gestures, which interpretation is itself multiple, or trial with the sethey) manage to outwit him: the match contentious, at any rate never definitive.34 with his most successful adversary, Suos-Dey (his future As we have seen, the narrative opens on a scene of wife), ends in a draw. But it is not enough to assert that interpretation, a scene which could be considered (in the TC is the master of interpretations, or the master of same way as, for instance the name of Thmenh-Thnenh- reversals, using against his adversaiy that adversary's Thun Chey) as a matrix of the text, as an enveloped, strength, and his own weakness. It still remains to be implicited figure of what in developed, explicited form, seen how he does it, what tricks he uses, what are his will be the narrative as a whole. This founding scene, strong and his weak points. Being both weak and which comes before TC's birth, and in a sense determines dependent, he evidently models his response on his his entire life, is very different from what will become the powerful adversary's challenge, on its form and its functioning of interpretation once TC himself enters the semantic field. stage. Indeed, the text proposed for interpretation is a That is why his devices, and the sphere of activity in dream, a message coming from elsewhere, and it is the which he displays them, vary from macro-sequence to only dream in the entire narrative, and one of very few macro-sequence. In the initial, and initiatoiy, trial, interventions from anything which can be called a confronted first with the sethey's wife, TC interprets “a “transcendence": unless I'm mistaken, the only other lot" to mean a limit less, infinite number, compared to instances are a comparison, or rather an argument a which any finite number is necessarily “little", hence too fortiori (the selhey telling the king that TC would outwit little. The merchant then intervenes, and transforms the the very Tevada), where the divine beings are therefore open question into a closed, binary one: on one side there not actually present, and the passage in which TC wants is a lot, on the other side, little, and TC allows himself to to commit suicide, and is saved by the Tevada.35 The be trapped inside this alternative, in which “a lot" simply message of the dream is actually quite clear: no-one means “more than something else, which is little". After needs a hora, a literary scholar or a psycho-analyst to this defeat in the final leg of his first battle of understand that it predicts abundance, enjoyment, the interpretations, TC vows to take revenge: he does not ask accomplishment of desire: Freud's Wunscherfullung, himself whether the merchant was right, or had some though the beneficiary is not the dreamer, but her son- rights. ForTC, what matters is to gain the upper hand, to to-be. To a very clearly encoded message, one which does be cleverer: the true, the good, the just don't enter into his not demand much interpretive work, can only correspond calculations. However I wish to stress again that his an obvious decoding, or else a blatant error dictated by calculations are not of the lowest pragmatic kind: what ignorance, stupidity or dishonesty. This is exactly what matters for him is not to obtain titles, institutional power, happens: the professional hermeneut (or his wife, in or wealth. Though his behavior is not moral, not just, not version C) takes advantage of the ignorance, the stupidity truthful, it isn't opportunistic either36—so what shall we or tendency to submit to authority of TC's mother to tell call it? Could it be aesthetic? Or, so to speak, sporting her, not just any old nonsense, but exactly the opposite (though hardlysportsmanlike, orcricket!). Or else sportive, of what the dream means. TC, instead of being destined playful, ludic? Or lawyerly? I shall leave that question for a life of grandeur, is destined to lead a very lowly life. open for the time being. Instead of endangering the social fabric through a dangerous upward mobility, he has to become one of the A merchant outbid: TC as literal fool37 most exploited instruments of that social order. And the one who claims this, to use an anachronism, is an The trials in the first series, where TC confronts the established ideologue—in other words, a “technician of sethey, who has become his master, all belong to the practical knowledge" (Sartre), or a “watchdog" of the same type: the sethey gives his servant an order (follow bourgeoisie (Nizan)—as opposed to an intellectual. He is me quickly, don’t bother to pick up things which may fall thus the opposite of what we would see, ideally, as a true out), which the latter interprets in a rigorously literal, or interpreter, a hermeneut. An interpreter is someone who literalisl, manner. When his master reproaches him for allows himself to be confronted with the uncanny not having done what the order meant, TC retorts that he strangeness, the irreducible opaqueness of a text, to has carried them out to the letter. The interpreter is which he can only lend a conjectural meaning, a process innocent of all error, of all misappropriation of meaning, which is not only unfinished de facto, but even dejure. it is the message itself that is guilty, because of its Interpretation goes from uncertainty to an explicitation ambiguity, and hence also the sender of the message: the or a modification of that uncertainty, which is what TC sethey38 But TC doesn't even mention this ambiguity, he will do, in his own highly idiosyncratic way. Indeed, if TC pretends to be aware of only one meaning, and treats plays tricks on/with language, on the one hand he does language as if it were entirely decontextualized, as if the

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situation didn't usually disambiguate the message. Of A king outranked: TC and metaphors course, "too bad if things fall out" could mean that it doesn't matter if everything falls out. that the sethey When he faces the king, TC acts in the same way, he couldn’t care less if there was nothing left in his betel set. shows himself to be the master of language, but the field But everyone knows that this is an improbable reading, in which his power operates is different, and so are his a paradoxical one (against received opinion, doxa). Faced devices. On the one hand, the tasks he is forced to with this deft piece of sophistry, the sethey can’t convict accomplish are no longer practical ones (economic or TC of error, willful or otherwise, he can’t prove anything, sycophantic): they are what I would call “krattc”43 since TC’s version is possible, authorized by the form, by challenges, in which the king is putting at stake both his the words (if not by the co(n)text). So he thinks he can political and his symbolic power.44 Contrary to the counterTC by next giving him an order which is the exact practical tasks set by the sethey, these challenges are in opposite of the first one, as though TC, when faced with principle unfulfillable. On the other hand, the physical, a given task (carrying to court the sethey's betel set), only geographical sphere of activity is different: we here leave had one wile at his disposal—or as though, in natural the immediate vicinity where we had stayed with the languages, a double negation necessarily amoun ted to an sethey, to go to the forest, the lake, the wat outside the affirmation. As though "Don’t do the opposite of what 1 city, ... outside the srok.4S In subsequent macro­ said," or more precisely “Do the opposite of what you have sequences, we will go even further afield: first there is the done, which was the opposite of what I had asked you to incursion of the foreigners, then the trip to the region of do," boiled down to “Do what I told you to do." But TC is the Great Lake, then to China, which to the teller must quick to prove him wrong: after he has interpreted have been one of the ends of the known world. As for the literally an implicit “(pick up) nothing." he interprets just devices used. I will mention two things only: first, the king as literally an explicit "pick up everything." He acts as constantly uses his political, or even police, power to though "everything" meant “everything in the universe, prevent TC from taking up the gauntlet: by having him anything whatsoever," rather than “everything in the given an elephant which is too old, by forbidding people betel set," as the context makes obvious—so he fills the from giving him information, by requisitioning all horses, betel set with horse dung!39 But TC has done nothing by forbidding people from selling or renting horses or more than actualize a highly improbable possibility, cocks to TC... Thmenh Chey’s, always victorious, retort which was however inscribed in the literality of the rests on his symbolic power, or rather, his power to message, so the sethey again can't punish him.'10 Just as symbolize, to make symbols, to metaphorize. There is the first time, he is condemned to silence, as TC’s other some paradox, even some scandal involved, since, as opponents will be. whereas TC is never at a loss for words. David Chandler shows, the power to name the real, to The merchant simply demotes the all too clever make symbols, to create meaning, was reserved to the subordinate. The same scheme which I have outlined in king (and, in some special areas, to official specialists, the "court" meso-sequence is at work in the two following like the hora), simple subjects being confined to silence or meso-sequences: looking after the garden/guarding the to a precoded answer. Now TC, faced with literal, and cows, delivering messages/being discreet. Likewise, in a literally insoluble, challenges, will here again displace final task, when TC is entrusted with a police investigation the locus of the debate: but instead of moving from a he does literally find the culprit: the stove, which caused derived sense, from a dead metaphor to the letter, as he the fire. Each time, TC decontextualizes the order he has had done with the sethey, he here jumps in the opposite received, and provides the most literal, most improbable, direction, from the letter to metaphoric creation. Whether weakest interpretation—and he gives it more strength, in it is the boat-elephant, the horse in the chess game,46 or his exchange with the sethey, than the strongest the cock-chick (or the calf-buffalo), what we have is the interpretation possesses. TC is the master of the signifier creation, or the unusual use, of a metaphor. and the signified, and the master of reversals: he gives In the case of TC-cock, we can say that the king strength to what is weak, and makes weak what was produces the initial (realized) metaphor: his courtiers are strong. It goes without saying that such reversals can nothing but hens, weak, stupid (but productive?) animals, have direct political implications (those who don’t have moreover of the female gender, and they are quite prepared power of any sort can, through their cunning, prevail over to jump into the water in their extreme submissiveness those in power41), but the text does not draw such a and toadyism—in French, we would say that these hens conclusion, and even invalidates it in a way. Indeed what (poules) in the water are "poules mouillees": chicken- happens here, as we shall see in the rest of the text, is not hearted. There is also an implausible feature: since when the weakening, much less the overthrow of the sethey/ have hens started laying eggs in the water? But this is courtier’s power: TC is only interested in defeating him quite consistent with the unlimited power of the king, symbolically, in humiliating him, in showing his own who doesn't acknowledge that reality, even biological intellectual superiority. TC has more in common with a laws, can impose any limits on him. As for TC, he cannot rebellious intellectual42 than with a revolutionary, or a be a hen: on a surface level because he doesn’t have an putschist (moreover, he is always actingalone, against all egg, on a deeper level because he isn’t a capon. Hence he others). transmetaphorizes, to the king and his hens he opposes a cock, a proud animal, and one which (not least in my native Wallonia) symbolizes, metaphorizes masculinity, power, the sun...47The king is metaphorically designated as a capon, an emasculated cock. As he has already

70 Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET INam G eneration VoIume 4 NuivtbtR ?-4 insulted the king and his courtiers, there is only one This interpretation can also be derived from two symbolic authority left for TC to debunk: Buddhism.'18 other sequences, one before, the other after the one we What he attacks, in this case as in all others, is not the have just considered. When the king defies TC to trick doctrine, or this or that tenet in it, but the man who him (the selhey having just boasted thatTC would trick supports or represents the institution: his arguments are the very Tevada). TC answers that he needs his book of invariably ad hominem. In the case of the chief of the lies. However, he has no such book, and doesn't derive his bonzes, as later in the case of the king of China, the insult skill from any book: we are never told that he has had any concerns physical appearance. But in this case, there are master or teacher, or that he has read any book other points of note. First, TC only insults the chief of the whatsoever. The only books which appear in the narrative bonzes in order to win a wager against the mandarins, are pseudo-Satra, covered with a crabby scrawl, which and to go back to court in spite of the king’s express ban: the Chinese soothsayers, not being the subtlest of the bonze is a lever, not a target. On the other hand, TC interpreters, will be unable to read, or read into, around utters a sentence “The hair on my head is comparable to or away. And when TC, just before his death, entrusts his a peacock's tale. Your shaven head, master, is more secret to the king, all they amount to is a few recipes, or attractive than my buttocks!" (M: 69), the literal meaning perhaps food taboos. So what TC tells his king is not the of which (physical description) the bonze understands secret of his success as an interpreter, but some pointless perfectly. However, when the king summons him and prattle. And yet... that is a new, and ultimate, trick of demands that he should explain himself, TC alleges a TC's, since everyone imagines that he has imparted some metaphoric explanation: he was in fact alluding to their knowledge to the king: the knowledge which made him respective place with regard to the king, hence their social invulnerable. He hasn’t imparted any substantive secret, status., which also leads to an inversion of values. The only the form of the secret. As everyone believes this to be peacock (TC) acquires a negative connotation, the buttocks the case, it is as though it were true, and. according to our (the chief of the bonzes) a positive one: clearly this is a text, it is by virtue of this nonexistent secret, which is paradoxical, forced interpretation.'19 universally held to exist, “that follows the respectful fear we still have towards the king" (M: 97).52 This fear comes Outlanders outthought: TC as patriotic cheat from a knowledge which everyone thinks TC has given the king: ifTC has no biological son, the king is his symbolic I now come to a macro-sequence which seems crucial to son. But we. the readers of this last but one sequence of me: the first encounter with the Chinese. I won’t dwell on TC, know full well that TC has imparted no knowledge to the historical, political allusiveness of these conflicts (of the king, who is utterly clueless as to the significance of interpretation) with China, nor on TC’s patriotism. What the “secret", and what is more, we know thatTC has never interests me is the way in which TC solves the first series had the slightest empirical or theoretical knowledge: not of Chinese riddles, and what this tells us about the his any knowledge that can be taught in schools, by nature, and limitations, of his knowledge. An unobtrusive, masters, any mathema. His knowledge is a matter of but unique and I think decisive characteristic of this trial, know-how, knowing how to handle, how to manage, a is that TC has some time to prepare himself, that he is not skill by which he finds in the heart of every unfavorable taken by surprise. Another, equally unobtrusive, unique, situation the means by which he will get out of it. A skill and decisive characteristic, is that the riddle of the water by which the weak become strong, the strong weak, melons can easily be solved: it is just a matter of knowing combined with an irrepressible desire always to come on how many seeds there are in the various melons.50 top. Some classic concepts allow us to name, at least Rather than an enigma, this is a mere problem. Now, partially, this “knowledge" of TC's: rhetoric, sophistics, despite the apparently simple character of the trial, seduction (terms which are not necessarily pejorative), compared to those he has overcome and those he is to also imagination. You can also see it as coming within the overcome, TC is in a panic, racking his brains without any realm of what Plato calls poietike lekhn&, practical result. Afraid that he is going to lose his reputation and knowledge whose aim is the manufacturing (not the his life, he decides to commit suicide. He will be saved by acquisition: kt&like tekhne) of things, whether these things an expedient, a supplement: the Tevada / chance, and are artifacts, images, discourse, interpretations. But it is that same power will allow him to overhear a conversation also something like the aret£, the virtu attributed since between the Chinese mandarin and the “man with a Aristotle (a.o. in the Italian Renaissance) to a good nimble mind." which gives him the answer to the riddle, politician.53 Except that TC, being fully confident in his and also to the other three riddles.51 TC has cheated, but universal capacity to get out of a tight spot and to lick the without meaning to. Why did he want to commit suicide, opposition, only thinks one stroke at a time: not only is why did he have to cheat? Quite simply, because he does he singularly lacking in positive knowledge or the ability not know anything, doesn’t have any positive knowledge to do research, but he is no planner, no Go player. Indeed and is incapable of embarking on any research: his the veiy fact that his response to a challenge, to an competence is strictly a rhetorical one, in other words aggression on the part of the powerful, makes them hate linguistic and psychological, a matter of lexis and pathos. and fear5,1 him even more, hence challenge, aggress him He is never at a loss for an answer, and is frightfully good all the more, forms the moving force of the diegesis. We at entangling his interlocutor in his own fantasy, but could say, as the early Russian “formalists" would have, those are his only skills. that a character such as TC had to be put together in order to motivate this development of the action.

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Fishing for fishermen: TC as illegal legislator and the mayor. TC however does subject himself, pro forma and after the event, to the whole pre-marital ritual, After his first ambiguous exploit against the wily Chinese, with all its categories of official intermediaries,61 who who are not wily enough for him (especially when fate is mostly appear in version C. This is more clearly an on his side) TC is more than ever exposed to the king's fear instance of the debunking of an institution, but TC's cum hatred: someone who is so good at saving his throne relationship (and that of the narrative as a whole) to the might be equally good at seizing it.55 The king sends him institutions which he founds or uses is always highly into internal exile, very far from his capital, in the region ambiguous. He exposes their illegitimacy, their weak of the Great Lake (one of the two geographical details in points, their possible perversion,62 but at the same time the text), just as earlier he had sent him away from his he leaves them standing, however wobbly, and he palace, then his eyes.56 The monarchy obviously only occasionally leans on them, or buttresses them. exercised limited control over those distant regions, just as communications with the center were limited. This The meanings (if any) of meaning being so, TC can easily claim that the king has appointed him “ supreme leader of this region" (M: 76). He therefore Many other scenes and devices could be discussed, but sets about instituting some political order: finances, law as there isn’t much time left I will simply analyze the main (implicitly), surveying, naming—in that order.57 We have scene of interpretation, a double one: the second joust to admit that he has pulled off his trick, since the names between TC and the Chinese. We could say, as a first he has chosen are still in use nowadays. O f course, it is approximation, that the first meso-sequence, in which exactly the other way around, and the narrative here has the Chinese take the initiative, presents polysemy, the an etiological function, as it does later on when it provides power of poly-interpretation, whereas the second one, the origin of noum banchock and of kites, or in version C, initiated by TC, raises the question of asemy, of the when it quite explicitly gives the origin of the Chinese in boundary between sense and non-sense. However, we Cambodia. Also, it gives us an explanation of the origins could also say that the first one raises the question of the of absolute monarchic power. Thmenh Chey is not an power of ostension, of indiciality: pointing at things to etiological narrative, but the etiological genre is one of the define them—and of the limits of this power. But also of genres it shuffles together. the power and limits of iconicity, of those signs which, in Punning on the meaning of one of the names he has some manner, resemble the things they designate. And invented, TC extorts huge taxes from the lake's fishermen, that the second meso-sequence deals with the limits of all catching them in the net of his linguistic power. The semiology, of "sign-ness": can there be a sign where there fishermen complain to the king, TC claims that the legal, is no intention?63 Also, what is writing? But let us look at financial, administrative58 order he has set up was all for things in more detail. The first meso-sequence is divided the greater good of the kingdom. However, it seems in two. The first sequence, in turn, is divided in two: first obvious that, had this been the case, the king himself TC has to respond to each Chinese riddle with a compatible would have promulgated this order: the one instituted by counter-riddle - which presupposes that he always has at TC was for his own personal use. This is perhaps the only least some fore-understanding of the riddle which has time in the text when TC behaves as just another A Lev. been submitted to him. that he is aware of the field in IfTC were really there as the king's representative, this which it operates. Only after this does the actual battle of would be a case of graft. David Chandler, in another interpretations start: each camp has to interpret the article,59 underlines the insurmountable dualism, in riddle of the other, knowing that the series of riddles traditional Khmer society, between a rigorous, even rigid, forms a narrative string, a kind of story. The riddles, as but inapplicable, order based on Buddhism, and real I have already said, are either indicial or both indicial and everyday practice, which is entirely pragmatic and iconic. Not a word is uttered, contrary to the first encounter unrelated to those principles. It is a form of bricolage, as (M: 74), where furthermore the things on which the Levi-Strauss would say, which ensures people’s survival riddles were based were physically present, not pointed in the lacunae of the system: what is called, in economics at or represented.6'1 The field in which the interpretations as in art, the informal.60 unfold, their isotopy. is that of cosmology, not of course I have already mentioned two other moments of an empirical or physico-mathematical cosmology, but a institution: when TC gives the king, and his descendants, "metaphysical" and figurative one—whereas in the first the illegitimate legitimacy thanks to which they can encounter only purely terrestrial mathematics and continue to reign, and when the selhey teaches TC. who sciences were involved. In fact, the story in this episode doesn't want to know, the law of exchange, the basis for moves gradually from the limits of the visible cosmos (the the comparability of things of different types (a service: sky) towards what for most pre-modem cosmologies restoring the shuttle, and a salary: the rice cakes). Less constitutes the center: the earth, and the absolute point explicitly, there is also the meso-sequence which shows of view: man. The second sequence is even more silent, TC “working" in the fields: by playing on the ambiguity of and like the first one it ends in a draw (M: 83). This time words /of boundaries. TC forces the selhey to lay down the gestures don’t point towards the environs, but remain the boundary between agriculture and husbandry, inside the bodies of the riddle setters; moreover, they are between chamcar and pasture. But institution is also iconic rather than indicial. No interpretation is offered, involved in the meeting between TC and Suos-Dey. They and "the Chinese withdraw without saying a word," have chosen each other, after their verbal joust, without reduced to silence, the silence of powerlessness, as the asking for anyone's opinion, bypassing Daddy, the vicar selheyand the king had been so often, whereas like them.

72 Sumivier-FaII, 1992 V iet Nam G eneration VoIume 4 NuiVlbCR 5-4 and contrary to TC. they are officially empowered to Khmer stage is likeTC, like the king, like the mandarins, speak. This gesturing will not however remain like the Chinese... everyone will have his list (and so of uninterpreted, but here TC alone will interpret for both course, do I). On the other hand, many of the problems sides of the dispute. He proffers for the whole string (a raised by the text, problems of juridicity, of legitimacy, of narrative made up of four interrelated riddles) three power, of resourcefulness, of conflicts and their modes of different interpretations, or rather three interpretations resolution... are still painfully open in Khmersociety, and which move in different realms, or isotopies. To the chief if Thmenh Chey—He who always has the last word does of the bonzes, he talks about food, to the samdech not in fact have the last word—the answer to these chauvea about war, to the king about religion (or rather, problems—it certainly does allow everyone, every Khmer about Buddhist “geography" and “history"). These three to keep these questions open, alive. It also teaches us to isotopies correspond to the three orders of Indo-European be wary of last words - for TC’s last word is always the next society according to Dumezil—or to the three types of one, never the latest one. citizens in Plato’s Politeia: producers, warriors and To close this talk, without a conclusion, 1 will let philosophers/priests—can this be a coincidence? It is someone speak who, in my tradition, has founded all rather piquant that in this tripartition the bonze should technical discourse on literature, Aristotle, in his Poetics find himself on the side of production...(or is it (59 a 4-8):"... the metaphorical is the most important by consumption?). This is however not unique to TO. in Xien far. This alone cannot be acquired from someone else, Meng and Sug kh&m tv too, bonzes are shown to be and is an indication of genius. For to make metaphors uncommonly fond of their food... and so are actual well is to observe what is like."68 And it is to see it where bonzes! Another point of interest in this multiplicity of it is least evident, where crabs write, where elephants set interpretations is that TC, being a good sophist, fits his sail, where kites cry out, where the pawns of chess come interpretations to his listeners, though being perverse he alive, where victories have teeth. Where the king’s power sees to it that each one is disturbing to its target. The resides in the place of a fish’s scales. listeners, sharing their interpretations, noticing that they are divergent, are as usual reduced to silence. They can’t see that these interpretations in fact obey a very Notes orderly polysemy, that they can easily be combined, are l This is the text of a lecture given in French under the auspices all not only possible, authorized by the text, but even of the Ministry of Education o f the State of Cambodia, in Phnom “compossible."65 Penh, in June 1990. It was one of a series of about fifteen talks In the second meso-sequence, TC has a riddle on literature, philosophy, and the methodology of literary criticism constructed (or rather, the precondition of his riddles: the given at the Ministry, at the Research Institute or at the writing in which they will purportedly be couched): this University of Phnom Penh in 1989-90, many of them with will be enough to rout the Chinese soothsayers, as they Elisabetta Cabassi. Perhaps 1 should add that these were as far as 1 know the first lectures on ideologically sensitive topics to be too are men of one interpretation only. What TC proposes given by any Westerner in the State of Cambodia, that I was to their shrewdness is very simply, a “crabby scrawl", asked to give them, and that my freedom to talk as I liked on my senseless patterns “written" by crabs, but in a mise en own chosen topics was entirely unhampered. What you will read scene which suggests that any schoolboy—any Khmer is an essentially unmodified translation of that talk, with its schoolboy at least—could read it without difficulty. Faced references to a certain context, and to a shared, French culture. with this to them (and indeed to everyone) radically new 1 have added a few notes to the original text, including this one: writing, the Chinese find their act quite crabbed... These this will be indicated by the abbreviation (AN). I wish to thank all the friends who made this lecture, and so many other things, are people who either know or don’t know, who either possible, including ElisabcttaCabassi, Chum Nyrath, Ly Somony, understand or don’t understand, and in this case, clearly, Sann Lyda, Sar Kapun, Sun Hcng Meng Chheang, Yin Vantha, they are in no position to know, or to understand, since and many others. Ang Choulean, who knows so much more this involuntary writing does no represent any object, any about Khmer literature than 1 do, was also kind enough to come concept, anything preexisting.66 In the face of non-sense, to my talk and give me a few comments. I would also like to thank silence: TC on the contrary is hardly likely to be bothered three “local" friends: Peter Morris and Ben Kiernan for their by this non-sense, he is only stumped when faced with a practical help, and Dan Duffy for enticing me to translate my perfectly univocal meaning (the watermelons). So he text. Finally, 1 wish to dedicate this to my many Khmer friends, produces a whimsical, spurious interpretation (alsoquasi- in Cambodia and elsewhere: may they never be tricked again by the butchers of Choeung Ek, who may well have shared a few unintelligible in version M—version C calls the crabbed impostures with Thmenh Chey, but whose aims and methods writing “writing of Brahman-ism"67), but the Chinese are otherwise make them “leftists in appearance, fascists in reality" completely hoodwinked. (to borrow— the ironyl—a Maoist turn of phrase). There is no time left to talk about TC’s other 2 In his Contribution a Vhistoire de la litterature khmere, interpretive games, with his wife, his wife's parents, the vol.l, p. 112, Khing Hoc Dy confirms that it is the best-known of mandarins, the Chinese king. Nor will I attempt to draw all Khmer tales and legends. (AN) up a list, or a typology, of the rhetorical devices which TC 3 To avoid boring repetitions, I will from now on call this the M uses, or the much shorter list of the devices which his version, while the version published in Cambodia will be the C opponents are able to use. Nor will I analyze TC's version. I will also often shorten the protagonist's name as TC, the text as TC. There seem to be two other French translations, inventions, and show that, like his foundations, they are which I have not read: one by Aymonier, the other by Bitard. (I part of his interpretive activity. I will not indulge in the have now read Bitard's version, published in France-Asie 116- inevitable, delightful but fallacious game of application, 117 & 121-122, which largely coincides with M and/or C, and a of deciding what present-day character on the tragic summary by Guy Poree, in the special issue of France-Asie, 114-

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is Sec his collection of essays Culture and Practical Reason 115 "Presence du Cambodge", which contains an additional, (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1976). The semiotic fiercely misogynous, episode). reason explored in Eco and Sebeok's The Sign of Three also 4 My friend Niem Darith has since given me a copy of the version comes to mind. which was used in schools in the UNBRO refugee camps... but 16 In the classic work which he co-authored with Evelyne as I can't read any Khmer...(AN) Maspcro, Moeurs et coutumes des Khm ers, Guy Poree claims s My thanks to Vandy Kaunn for having given me a copy of his that " Sgarxarelle devenait alors un frere de ce Jilou de Thmen work. Chey, heros de nombreux contes, quijoue des tours perudables a 6 Reissued by Cedoreck, 1984. chacun, dcommencerparsonpereetsamere." (p.254). My reason 7 Some collections in French published in the early 70's by the for quoting this is not that it dangerously trivializes our text Institut Bouddhique could still be found in Phnom Penh at Tuol (which it does), but that it seems to mix the fatherless Thmcnh Turn Pung market, and at the National Library, in the late 80's. Chey up with A Lev. In "Personnages comiques des contes There is also a remarkable collection of German translations, M. populaires" (France-Asie 114-115, p.460) the same Poree equates Nevcrmann’s Die Stadt der tausend Drachen (1956). And him him Arlequin, A Lev with Guignol, AChakSmok with Pierrot collections in French by Pavic, Leclcre, Monod, Martini and ... the urge to assimilate, or, as llankc has called it, the misery Bernard, Thierry, Khing Hoc Dy, all but one of them recently of comparing. published or reissued. But next to nothing in English: there are 17 Another interpretive scheme could be used: TC's is the two tiny collections put together by David Chandler, the first in(dc)finite desire of primary narcissism, before the law of the scholarly (The Friends who tried to empty the sea: Eleven father institutes a limited enjoyment. In a sense, TC is the Cambodian Folk Stories, 1976), the second for children “pervert" who always plays with the law, tricks it and pays lip (Favourite Stories from Cambodia, 1978—with 8 of the service to it. Obviously, more could, and should be said in this original 11 stories, and 4 additional ones), a story for children connexion, but it is not my object—and I am, again, Judge Rabbit and the Tree Spirit (published by Children Book's incompetent.For some suggestive views on the links between Press in 1991), and another collection by Anthony Milne (M r. perversion and politics, see Rosolato et al.: Le Desir et la Basket Knife and other Khmer Folktales , 1972) (AN) perversion. (AN) 8 The very name Thanonc(h)ai, or Dhananchaya (in a version is Though this simple, everyday greeting actually means edited by M.L.M. Bunnag which I was unable to locate) indicates "prosperity, good fortune" (sec Khing Hoc Dy: Contribution a Kammu Story-listener's Tales, that this is ourThnen Chey. In A I'Histoire de la litterature khmere, p.230). (AN) Kristina Lindcll also mentions a Pali cycle ofThanonchay Bandit 19 Sec Khing Hoc DyFNotes sur le theme de la femme "marquee (p.40). (AN) de signes" dans la litterature populaire khmere", C a h ie r s d e Sug, the Trickster who fooled the Monk 9 Sec Viggo Brun: VAsie du Sud-IZst, n°2, 1977, pp. 15-43. (AN) (Curzon Press, Lund, 1976). This tale-cycle displays a number 2 0 And his wife seems to become just another female, tamed by of striking similarities of motifs with TC, notably tricking a monk, marriage. Given the Khmer belief in the infinitencss of woman's and scatological episodes and language (both however much desire (oral communication from Judy Ledgcrwood), it takes the more prominent than in TC): a sequence in which Sug, infinite (or transfinitc?) desire ofTC to impose a law, a boundary despairing of solving riddles set by Bangkok people (every bit as on this dangerous creature. So in a sense this "etiological" dangerous as the Chinesel), tries to commit suicide by drowning, episode founds the circumscription of women within the home, fails and overhears the Bangkok people explaining the riddle, the domestication of that wild animal within the bounds of one about seeds in watermelons as in TC (but in this case the matrimony... or so men would like to thinkl (AN) smaller melon has more seeds): one in which he claims, to the 2 1 It would seem that in some versions TC does actually become king, that his power comes from books (whereas he is, like TC, king: this at any rate is what Judith Jacobs writes in the Thmcnh illiter-ate), and, in a variant, crab writing. There is also the Chey entry of the Dictionary of Oriental Literatures (vol.ll, progression from easier to more difficult opponents, and the p.159). (AN) move from local to distant ones (but Sug doesn't visit them, they 22 This weak structure is something Aristotle has taught us to visit him). However, Sug is not in the least disinterested, and he despise (see P o e tic s , 51 b33-52a 1,59a 17-59b 1), and hard-core has to rely much more on luck (or the "supernatural", when he structuralists (but not Shklovskii or Barthes) would agree. understands the language of frogs). (AN) Pierre Bitard considers that TC is in the same class as L a z a r illo 10 See Kristina Lindcll ct al. : A Kam m u Story-Listener's Tales, d e T o r m e s , and quotes it at the start of his translation. (AN) Curzon Press, Lund, 1977, especially talc 5, "Aay Caang Laak" 23 I was stating this on the basis of the quite loosely organized (but also tales 1, 18-20). The introduction to tale 5 sketches Institut Bouddhique version. To be fair, 1 should say that this many o f the interconnections, but almost totally ignores the version docs have some minimal rules of succession, such as Khmer domain. (AN) trick-countcr-trick (attempted revenge)—second (counter- 11 Also, quite a number of talcs in what are euphemistically counter-) trick; also the fact that men first appear among the called (often, the better to eliminate them) "minorities". On hare's beneficiaries in sequence 15, surely a progression of some these, see Chants-Poemes des monts et des eaux, translated sort, and the fact that sequences 24-26 involve rather more by Mircillc Gansel (Paris, Sudcstasic/UNESCO, 1986), in elaborate, semiotic, TC-likc skills than the rest. 1 have since read particular tales from the Rhadce, Van Kieu, Katu, Mnong and another version, in a French anthology for children, Maurice Nung ethnic groups. Many of those groups speak languages of Pcrcheron's Contes et legendes d'Indochine (Nathan, 1955), the Mon-Khmer family. Also, a Swedish study and collection, A which is more tightly organized. It has a frame explaining in what Kammu Story-Listener's Tales, by Kristina Lindcll, Jan-Ojvind mythic space-time the story originates, and how its truth is Swahn and Damrong Tayanin (Curzon Press, Lund, 1977). established by the presence ofSophca's image on the Cambodian 12 Costcr-Wijsman's Uilenspiegel-Verhalen in Indonesia seal o f justice, and the tales themselves move up from crocodile suggests similarities (or influences) in Indonesia (I have not read to tiger to man (with a clear explanation of why the hare was that book). (AN) promoted to being a judge in men's affairs). However, this may 13 On which sec the classic works of Eric I Iobsbawm. (AN) bca rationalization, superimposed on a looser "original" structure. H As 1 recall, the main question, coming from a professor of (AN) Khmer literature at the University of Phnom Penh, concerned 24 Called by the Russian Formalists "staicasc-like struc-turc", the prevailing Marxist interpretation of the text, which I said one of the common forms of zamedlenie, or retardation. (AN) seemed to me correct as far as it went, but a bit reductive, 25 This seems to outline a hierarchy between different classes undialectical. (AN) of servants: we could on the basis ofTC and other stories sketch

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35 These two mentions o f the Tcvada are absent from the C a description o f Khmer society at the lime when the stories were version, as is the adjective" prophetic" with which M describes conceived .... if, that is, we can be sure that they arc “true" the dream. Could this be a case of anti-religious censorship, pictures o f their society. before Buddhism became the state religion of Cambodia (Revised 2 6 I am not suggesting that the anonymous Khmer tellers had Constitution of 1 May 1989)? read Hegel, noreven that Hegel knew aboutoral Khmer literature... 36 Of course, in asense, he is the essence ofopportunism: he has but was there anything that Hegel didn't know? the knackofscizingthcopportunity, the kairos, the deon, of seeing 27 O f course, reduplication of episodes can serve a narrative in a (lash, in every situation which presents itself, what course purpose: that of delaying, of creating suspense. In folk tales, as he has to follow to rout his adversary. However, his is not Shklovskii has shown ( O Teorii Proxy, 1925) episodes are often conventional opportunism, or careerism, which always aims at triplicated, which can also, at the actantial level, show how power, venality, or both. If TC doesn't embody utilitarian brave, persistent, etc. the hero is. And the additional episode, at courtliness, this ethos is well represented in the text: the sethey, the level of informants, indicates that in the world of the text, the mandarins, and inC the courtcsansare all perfect sycophants. there were buffalo fights as well as cock fights, and presumably, On the other hand, there isn't a single character in the narrative that they were more prestigious (since this comes after the cock who represents truth, justice, morals: neither political nor fight). (AN) religious power (whose clear interdependence is not thematized, 28 In a text which remains essential, “Introduction a l'analyse as it goes without saying) represent any thingother than tradition, structural des recits” (English translation in New Literary the unquestioned, unconscious of itself locus of the good, of H is t o r y 6), Roland Barthes shows how the lower levels of legitimacy in societies which are therefore called “traditional". Of description are integrated, fit into the higher levels. The mode of course, such a tradition only derives its “naturalness" from the enunciation, of narration of the narrative is the highest level, fact that no-one questions it, that its recognition goes without unless that is we leave the narrative proper and see how it is saying, without thinking: no-one can imagine that things might integrated in other structures, discursive formations (genres) be different: other cultures, if known, and if considered as fully and social formations. See also, on this, Gerard Gcncttc's human, arc simply different ontological entities—of course F ig u r e s i n (English translation as Narrative Discourse: An crocodiles don't fly 1 We can therefore consider that TC, by IZssay in Method ). These, and other essential works in literary making this tradition visible, by proposing ludic, imaginative theory, can be read at the Research Institute and the Publishing variations on the meaning ofwords and customs, establishes the House of the Ministry of Education, and at the University of conditions of dissolution of that tradition. What he puts in its Phnom Penh. place is not clearly defined by the text, but it would seem to be 29 This has not prevented the author of the Institut d'Etudcs a more absolute monarchy (through weakening of what we call, Boudhiqucs translation of Sophea Tonsai (Histoircs du Juge in a highly dubious analogy, “feudalism"), no longer founded on Licvre), Pierre Midan, from calling it a “roman", a novel. tradition (a formofnaturality), but on the transmission of a form 30 On this genre, a very common one in the Khmer tradition, see of transcendence (the secret slipped into the king's car). An Solangc Bernard: Le Cambodge des contes, pp.73-74, and chapters III, IV and V. empty transcendence, obviously, and one which can therefore 31 The phrase “effet de reel" was coined by Roland Barthes to be saturated, accomplished by all fears, all desires of subjects and courtiers. designate the overabundant, narratively non-functional, oreven dysfunctional, details of the realistic novel, whose function is to 37 This is type 1693 in Aamc-Thompson: The Types of the make the whole story look real. See the translation of that essay f o l k t a l e , p.480. (AN) 38 This is the central mechanism which Claude Reichler has in Tzvetan Todorov cd., French Literary Theory. identified in his book La Diabolie. La seduction, la renardie, 32 According to Cirlot, four is “ Symbolic of the earth, of I'ecriture: cunning is only possible because the duplicity which terrestrial space, o f the human situation, of the external, natural limits of the 'minimum' awareness, of totality and, finally, of it wields is already at work in the law itself. 39 This dirty trick is also played by Xicn Mcng on his master, rational organization. It is equated with the square and the cube, and the cross representing the four seasons and the points of the Guru Paramarta. (AN) compass.(...) It is the number associated with tangible 40 This places TC in the category of "archie Debunkers", which includes Derrida and Nietzsche (and de Man): see Paul de Man: achievement and with the Elements." (Dictionary of Symbols, Allegories of reading, pp.9-10. (AN) p..232-33). The Shambhala Encyclopedia of Eastern 4! 1 would like to add here something which I did not mention Philosophy and Religion mentions quite a few Buddhist foursomes: Four certainties, Four famous mountains, Four in the talk: Prime Minister Hun Sen was then often compared to foundations of mindfulness. Four immcasurablcs, Four noble- Thmcnh Chey — referring among others to his humble origins truths, Four perfect exertions, Four stages of absorption and and the skill (and the twinkle in his eye) with which he dealt with Four stages of formlessness (pp. 109-10). In two essays on the kings and emperors. (AN) 42 Even though he has never gone to school, doesn't know Bayon (France-Asie vol.XII, pp.343 and 672, Henri Marchal and G. Coedcs-Herzog underline the link between the number four, anything—nothing but the powers, the spells of language. But the points o f the compass, and the country as a whole... could who ever said that you had to go to school to be an intellectual, TC be suggesting that his fight against the Chinese is on behalf or that those who do often become intellectuals? Besides, intellectuals “proper" wouldn't often have TC's courage in the of the whole srokkhmaer'f Solangc Thierry (op.cit., p. 134, writes:" face o f authority. (AN) Quant aux4 directions (ou 4 directions + le centre, ou8directions), il s’agit la d’un theme associe au pouvoir souverain, qu'il soil 43 The greek word kratos means power, and can be found in the suffix of a number o f words used in a great many languages: diviru bouddhique ou royal." ... TC usurping the king's power, again?(AN) democracy, aristocracy, ploutocracy, technocracy, bureaucracy, 33 The breakthroughs of structuralism, semiology and statocracy,... Another, quasi-synonymous, Greek word, arkhe, deconstruction have made us familiar with the idea that the real has given anarchy, monarchy (but also archbishop, archeology, can be constituted, structured as text, or discourse— or indeed, archaic etc.). Dictatorship comes from la tin, a rare exception in that field... and "democradura", a portmanteau word, is of recent in the more radical forms o f these "theories," that the real is always already language. As an exemplary observer, Francois Latin American (Argentinian) coinage (let us hope that it doesn't Wahl, putit: "Commeremarquaitunjourlxican, la simple presence have any relevance in post-1993 Cambodia). 44 David Chandler, in a paper on the ritual aspects of the reign d'objets dans une tombe est deja une forme de discours." of king Ang Duong (also an important figure in the history of 34 This differance of interpretation of course extends to the present text. (AN) Khmer literature), shows that Cambodia was first and foremost

75 Suimmer-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIume 4 NuivibcR J-4 a theatre-state (a term borrowed from the anthropologist Clifford docs:" Through the name, the object as being is born out of the Gecrtz), in which the king essentially has to play the roles of I. This is the first creative power which the spirit exercises. Adam mediator, master of names and of protocol. gave all things a name. That is the right of majesty and first 4 5 As Solangc Thierry shows (op. eft.), the forest (and Lhe taking possession of all nature or the creation of the latter out mountain), contrary to the s r o k (a word which can also designate of the spirit. Logos (is) reason, essence of things and discourse, a district, or the whole country. Srok Khmer), docs not belong to sake (Sache) and saying (Sage), category." ( J e n a e r humans: it is the realm of divine and demonic beings (more Realphilosophie, ed. by Johannes Hoffmcister, Felix Meiner, recently, of the Khmer Rouge). This is actually true in many other —my translation). Existentialism, being less confident cultures. (AN) that reality gets anything out o f it, has said: T h e word is the 46 A horse taken from the kings chessboard. a chick which routs the murder of the thing." Mastery cadaverizes: what good is it to king'scock:TC notonly answers thcchallenge, but hisanswerisitsclf master things if through that mastery they cease to be? a challenge, a challenge which the king is unable to answer. Indeed 58 The order in which those realms are listed is different from it is plausible, in this narrative space in which everything can be that in their first mention, which is not unimportant: the place transformed into anythingclst— though there is no religious magic, of the law in that system is crucial. No less crucial is the only a magic of rhetoric, of signs—that the king's cock, through a difference in the place, and the weight, of finances. Another point combination of metaphor and metonymy, is the king himself, which deserves mention is the total absence of education as an whereas the chick, through the same tropic transformation, is TC. area of administration. In the founding work of the philosophical The king-cock is thus ridiculed by the TC-cockerel. problematic in Europe, Plato's P o l it e ia , education (albeit that of 47 This is probably one o f the reasons why man, who is never the guards, not o f the population as a whole) is the touchstone sufficiently sure of his masculinity, his virility, invented cock of the whole construction of the ideal polis(a rather despotic, if fights. Likewise, bull fights... or beating one's wife. What man not totalitarian one: education is brainwashing ... but of course really manifests in all these cases is his barbarism. it is an enlighted despotism). 48 Clerics victimised by tricksters or otherwise mocked are 59 "Songs at the Edge of the Forest: Perception of Order in Three frequent in folk literature (Aarne-Thompson 1725-1849*), and CambodianTcxts", collected in the volume Moral order and the in the region, one could think of A Lev, Xien Mcng, Sug. (AN) Question of Change (Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 49 TC as interpreter often reminds us of the points or conceits New Haven, 1982). of the mannerist poets of the 16th-17th c. in Europe, those 6 0 This should be qualified: on the one hand noone could claim scholarly euphuists, precieux et precicuses... that really takes that Western societies, for instance, have ever functioned on the the cake, when you think that TC never set foot in a school, basis of Christian principles (or any of the numerous so In version C, the logic of the answer is even clearer, since the interpretations thereof... that is, short of casuistry!), or on the scries (1,2,3) of the seeds is congruent with the scries of the sizes basis o f any other "grand rccit". On the other hand, I don't think of the water melons: the smallest one has 1 seed, the middle one that dualism exhausts the whole of Cambodian behaviour: pre- 2, the largest one 3. Buddhist "superstitions" (as we call other people's, other times' 51 These other riddles arc more his line, since they arc solved by a religions) play an important role in everyday life. pun. However, they come within the purview of some basic 61 Matchmakers, like the hora and the Chinese soothsayers, can metaphysical-mathematical problems: continuous/ discontinuous, be considered to belong to a more general category of professional divisibility, and the link between real and representation. interpreters (and intermediaries), whom TC reveals to be all 52 This conclusion docs not appear in version C, but the logic of useless, incompetent or malevolent. transmission of power through transmission of an alleged 62 Within the context ofa “traditional" society, he weakens them knowledge is the same. simply by showing that they haven't always been there, that they 53 "Good" here not in a moral sense, but to designate a politician arc not natural (in the current lingo: that they are constructed), who by a combination of prudence and capacity to decide (also or founded by some supernatural being or event to decide quickly, in critical moments) carries out his task to the (such as the white elephants which choose the site of a city in greatest advantage of the res publico. some Khmer etiological talcs). (AN) 54 I know that TC's feats also arouse admiration, but it is an 63 A problem raised in Eco's Trattato di Semiotica generate. (AN) admiration which, mixed as it is with hatred and fear (hatred 64 We had in this first scries a kind of mixed semiology (as in because of fear) only serves to intensify those negative emotions. comic strips, film, etc.), with on the one hand words, on the other " In times past... in the kingdom ofTcp Borcy "it was not good to sign-things. In the last riddle of that series, the thing is not arouse the admiration of one's king... as for the present time... supposed to be unveiled or cut, but manufactured (and what has 55 Since the Renaissance at least, subtle connoisseurs have to be manufactured is a material representation). noticed how dangerous it is for a courtier to be visibly cleverer 65 Wccouldbringintoplayllcidegger'sdistinction(in U n te r w e g s than the king. Vide BaltasarGracian, indispensable complement zur Sprache) between mehrdeulig and vieldeutig, or that of of Machiavelli and Casliglione. Derrida between polysemy and dissemination. TC is here very 56 TC's demotions are at the same time banishments away from much on the side of Mehrdeuligkeit, o f polysemy, of unity within the centre of power. In the connotaLive geography of the text, the multiplicity. But even that is too much for his one-track periphery is the bottom, the centre is the top - as is generally the opponents. case, and as is the case in present-day Cambodia. All movement 66 Though we can't rule out that an ingenious mathematician therefore takes place along two axes, in a 2-D metaphorical a la Thom could establish the law of a crab's movement, or even space. of those of a group of n crabs on a given surface. But of course 57 In many traditions, maybe in all, naming, of human beings he would be iooking for a law, a scientific, causal explanation, but also of animals and things, at least things of nature, has not for an understanding, a meaning. been invested with great solemnity, with an aura of secrecy. This 67 I should add that for the Khmcrs their writing is not just by virtue of a mimological semiology, for which the word something instrumental, but something unique and precious, resembles/must resemble that thing which it designates, or and a major embodiment of what it is to be Khmer - and trad­ indeed is the thing itself. To know the name of a thing is itionally it was considered to be a gift from the gods (cf. Khing, tantamount to having power over it. In our tradition, which in o p .c it. p.6). (AN) spite of everything remains partly a biblical one, Genesis comes 68 Based on the translation by Richard Janko (Hackctt publishing to mind, with the authorisation it seems to give us to do what we Company, Indianapolis, 1987). TC is not only good at making like with our environment— which is exactly what we have done. metaphors, also at baring them, reviving them, literalizing them. (AN) We could see the positive aspect o f this phenomenon, as Hegel

76 Suiviivier-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration V o Lum e 4 NuMbER J-4

P o et r y by L enarc] D. M oo re

A Hum in the Living Room then he turned away. One morning Daddy, just home from Vietnam, He boarded the Greyhound. came in the living room and sat in his chair. I held my mother’s hand and looked 1 sat waiting on the shabby stool, at him climbing the steps. hair clippers in my hand. He sat and hung his hand out the window, I turned the clippers on I watched the bus fade. before handing it to him. I have never understood why he had to go, It hummed like honeybees. although my mother cupped me in her arms, He jerked back against the chair. as if she still could reach my father. It was the first time he’d heard it hum in a year. How terrible to see his face turn red, What Was Said on the Porch and hear him gasping. He gradually straightened up, When I was nine asked me to hold my head still, my father stood and considered the part he wanted to cut. on the wooden steps of our porch I turned around on the stool, while the leaves of the maple frightened, squinting, at the roadside dreading the next haircut. fell in whispers. He thoughtfully asked my great uncle to take care of Chicken. Grandmother on the Porch Father had always called Mother “Chicken." “Of course," Great Uncle said, A month after Father left us in khakis, “I'll look out for my niece" she came to visit us. and glanced down at me. Words were fewer than usual. I wanted to answer I'll take care All day she sat on the porch o f Mother, but I knew my place. facing the thick field of wavering com. “I don’t know what Vietnam will be like," When Mother went into the house to cook, father told him, “I just don't know." she turned toward me. Great uncle turned his gaze She whispered, “I keep thinking to the wind chimes that hung from the roof, of your Daddy in Vietnam." hat tilted the way of the wind, I pushed my nine-year-old hands into my pockets and cigar burning red. and said, “Me, too. I want him Father’s eyes were red from crying, to take me fishing again." his hands tucked in his pockets She dabbed here eyes and said, as a change of air moved “My son must have us on his mind.” between Great uncle and him. Mother came to the door and stood, with flour on her hands. Lenard Duane Moore is a U.S. Army veteran bom in 1958, “If Daddy can’t be here,” I said, son of a career Marine who served two tours in motor Why can't I be him?" transport with the 5th Communications Battalion in the Grandmother’s eyes were a blank. Republic o f Viet Nam. The poet lives with his wife and daughter in Raleigh. NC. His poems have appeared in print since the early 80s, recently in issues o f North Dakota My Father Leaves for Vietnam Quarterly, The Arts Journal, and Pem broke Magazine. He has worked with a variety o f societies, When my father let loose my mother organizations, and agencies to promote the arts. His from his outstretched arms, poetry has appeared in translation, in Spain, Italy, China, he stared into her eyes, and especially in Japan. Two collections are forthcoming: as if wanting to see his pain. Forever Home, from St. Andrews Press (Saint Andrews I had never seen him cry. Presbyterian College. 1700 Dogwood Mile, Laurinburg, NC His eyes dammed the water. 28352, 919-277-5310), and Desert Storm: A Brief I felt my mother’s heart drumming in me. History, from Los Hombres Press (PO Box 63279, San He looked down and Diego, CA 92163-2729, 619-234-6710). Moore's brother whispered in my ear, “I’ll be back, fought in an artillery unit in Desert Storm. Contact: 5625 don't be afraid," Continental Way, Raleigh, NC 27610, 919-231-8536, (W) 919-733-3193.

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In tMe BElly of tHe B east: M IA s ANd ThE political theology," The King's Two Bodies. An enormous compendium of anecdotes, images, and literary Body PoliTic and historical detail, The King's Two Bodies examines the medieval and Renaissance notion of the complex and by Maria Damon, English Department, University of at times mystical conjunction of the ruler's natural body Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 with his spiritual body—in other words, the body politic. In the context of Kantorowicz’s own experience as a The obsession to retrieve the remains of U.S. soldiers Jew exiled from Europe during the expansion of the Third from Viet Nam points to a resurgence of a pattern of Reich, one hidden agenda in his project was to demystify reifying the body politic during a crisis of political the spiritually rationalized totalitarianism invested in legitimation. The genuine and cross-cultural (one is national politics—a totalitarianism, that is, effected tempted to use the term “ubiquitous") concern with through conflating spiritual authority with the person of proper disposal of the dead can be observed in as diverse the head of state, and the integrity of the nation with phenomena as Antigone on the one hand, and, on the racial and ideological “purity." This conflation could be other, recent Native American victories in their protest said to have reached its modern in the symbolically against researchers’ disrespectful appropriation of their charged person of Adolf Hitler, but was also resurfacing ancestral remains. However, far from being a “universal" in Kantorowicz’s adopted nation, the United States, in feature which operates similarly across the cultural the anticommunist discourse dominating the postwar board and around the world, care of the dead, and period. Kan torowicz speaks euphemistically of the German particularly in this case the war dead, consistently reflects 1930s and the American 1950s as dominated by “the and constitutes an instance of the dynamics of each weirdest dogmas... in which political theologisms became culture. genuine obsessions defying... the rudiments of human In the context, therefore, of contemporary American and political reason." (viii) Reconstructing medieval history politics, public phenomena such as the Rambo films, in the light of mid twentieth-century concerns, professional athlete Gary Gaetti's fixation on the MIA/ Kantorowicz illuminates the times in which he wrote, and POW issue, the fetishization of the presidents' bodies, we in turn are not indulging in arbitrary anachronistic and the anatomical tropes that creep into media discourse comparison to apply his analysis to the 1980s. on domestic and foreign policy must be read with an eye According to this Cold War text, the fiction of the toward our particular social situation. When an imperial King's Two Bodies as it operated in medieval legal and power is embattled, when an economy threatens collapse, political life was a versatile concept which could be a wild scramble to salvage some kind of certainty ensues, interpreted in wildly divergent ways, depending primarily— and the physical body emerges as an icon to which of course—on the interests of the state. At times the two ideological significance can be attached. National paranoia bodies were conceived of as separable. Kantorowicz quotes and a corollary self-aggrandizement both increase, and Edmund Plowden, the Elizabethan lawyer, who articulates questions of boundary play themselves out on the seemingly contradictory positions in the same text. On fetishized body. The following discussion will touch not the one hand: only upon the MIA phenomenon, but also upon other contemporary instances of physicalizing the body politic The King has in him two bodies, a Body natural and separating national ideology from real bodies. I will and a Body politic. His Body natural (if it be note primarily the enormous publicity given to former considered in itselfi is a Body mortal, subject to president Reagan's health, and the way medico-physical all Infirmities that come by Nature or Accident, to language and imagery permeate the discourse of both the Imbecility of Infancy or Age, and to the like foreign and domestic policy. Defects that happen to the natural Bodies of What appears to be a brief digression intoa twentieth- other People. But his Body politic is a Body that century interpretation of medieval politics of the body cannot be seen or handled, consisting of policy and bodies politic will serve to outline the primary and government... and this body is utterly void of concept informing my discussion. Historically and Infancy, and Old Age, and other natural defects culturally, the United States is far from medieval Europe. and imbecilities, which the Body natural is subject At that time, the very nascent concepts of nationalism to... (9). and national leadership needed an ideology of the body to help these concepts appear “natural;" currently, the To illustrate this version of the concept, Kantorowicz cites twilight of capitalism and nationalism demands an the case in which peasants had to pay a fee on the natural analogous ideology, though this time around it is reactively death of the king even though his kingship was considered defensive rather than actively constructive. However, the immortal; and also the case of the English Revolution, in way in which this medieval constellation of ideas comes which the Parliament could invoke the spiritual king's to us makes it an appropriate template against which to leadership in taking up arms against Charles, the King’s consider recent events. Ernst Kantorowicz, an Eastern natural incarnation. European Jewteachingat Berkeley during the 1940s and On the other hand, sometimes these two are not so 1950s—and then dismissed for spearheading opposition sharply distinguishable. The two kings could be conflated to the compulsory loyalty oath—exhaustively explored such that they were inseparable. Plowden also states; this physicalizing of politics in his “study of medieval

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[The King] has not a Body natural distinct and strong person of the leader can salvage a threatened divided by itself from the Office and Dignity royal, nation. For instance, while former President Reagan's but a Body natural and a Body politic together defiant survival of an assassination attempt, intestinal indivisible; and these two bodies are incorporated and skin cancer, and the natural vicissitudes of the aging in one Person, and make one Body and not process pointed toward his virility and even immortality, divers, that is the Body corporate in the Body the body politic itself was in extreme danger. Its fragile natural, et e contra the Body natural in the Body health hung on the thread that is Central America. The corporate (9). “Central America crisis," with its coverage in the papers constantly accompanied by diagrams and maps of the The perfection of the spiritual king redeemed any possible isthmus, arrows and dots pointing out the capital of failing of the natural king—thus, for example, the Nicaragua, contra campsites in Honduras, etc., merged infallibility and political omnipotence of children-kings. with the crisis in Reagan's health, complete with diagrams We might look at a modern-day American instance of the president’s colon, arrows and dots highlighting the of the bodying forth of a state in the person of its leader, offending polyps. Although Reagan himself insisted after and the corollary or contradictory situation in which the each trip to the hospital that he is now a person who “had person of the leader comes to embody the state. We might cancer," the nation was not out of the woods yet. observe that Johnson and Nixon were each forced to step Continuing to play on the myth, solidified by the down because their conduct was not worthy of the assassination attempt, of the double vulnerability and spiritual Presidency. Conversely, even Reagan's political immortality of the ruler's body, the President projected enemies in government have played down his possible and displaced his condition onto the international scene, role in Contra-Gate because he has so successfully continuing to warn us of the far more dangerous “cancer identified his person with the office o f President that it is of communism" spreading from seemingly harmless and seriously feared that any condemnation of Reagan would tiny Managua, the polyp that will kill two continents if not lead to mass cynicism and public loss of faith in the subjected to certain “operations." On conventional atlas Presidency itself. Another more humorous and bluntly maps, Central America even looks like a long and skinny physical comparison comes to mind: the public ridicule crumpled-up gut connecting the two larger continents. that followed Johnson's display of his appendectomy Without its health intact, North and South America may scar stands in neat juxtaposition with the noble cast of become incontinent. The consumers of these media Reagan's highly touted drug test urinalysis. An images were urged to show the same outpouring of acknowledgement of Presidential physicality is undignified concern for the welfare of the body politic as for Reagan's in the first instance and morally praiseworthy in the natural body—in fact, the one should follow from the second. Johnson and Nixon both served during periods other. If we think of these diagrams of Reagan's colon of great public questioning of authority: the Reagan era, superimposed over a map of the nation, Che Guevara’s on the other hand, has been characterized on the whole observation that we who live in the States live “in the belly by public passivity and increased state control of public of the beast" takes on a grotesque allegorical materiality. institutions. Indestructible repositories for our national faith, From these examples, as from Kantorowicz's both Reagan and Bush have survived skirmishes with examples of the English Revolution versus the facial skin cancer, smiling and sporting band-aids in TV omnipotence of children kings, one could speculate that appearances and on front pages. Exaggerated publicity of increased conceptual slippage between the physical ruler these minor problems both distracts from and is exactly and the body politic points toward the possibility for analogous to the covert and unpublicized activities change—and conversely, the more the two are conjoined supported by the U.S. in Central America: according to into one static and reified whole, the more literalized John Stockwell, the highest ranking officer to defect from metaphors of the body politic become in the person of the the CIA and author of the CIA expose In Search of ruler, the more intransigent the state’s hegemonic rule. Enemies, one form of torture used by the Contras was to Again, consider the example of Hitler. Ernst Kantorowicz peel the facial skin off of Nicaraguan peasants as their is not the only European to point with urgency to the families were forced to watch. dangers of over-investment in the person of a leader: It is of special interest to point out here that national much more recently, Jochen Schulle-Sasse has written health care improvements were among the most successful of Reagan as a supreme icon and media invention of a undertakings of the Sandinista government: hence, health national ideology: who "incorporates, more than any care workers, hospitals and people delivering other [cultural icon], both the cultural politics of pharmaceuticals and supplies overland to remote areas neoconservat ism and the powerfu 1 effect of h igh tech nology were special targets of the counterinsurgency. The on culture:" later in the article Schulte-Sasse draws counter-revolutionaries’ brutal and preemptive parallels between the Hands Across America media event “operations" were designed to prevent isolated parts of and Nazi rallies, reminding his readers that his personal the Nicaraguan population from realizing the health history as “someone with a German backgrou nd" dictates benefits of the revolution. As faith in the good health of the gravity of his remarks. (146) our individual leaders becomes itself a fetish, attacks on However, this literalizing—the body politic as the the health of others—even our own children, our indigent leader's body—is not always a simple equation. It can and our elderly, in the form of educational, welfare, take the form of compensatory relationship: faith in the medicare and medicaid cutbacks—unavoidably

79 Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET INam G eneration Volume 4 INuivibcR 5-4 accompany anticommunist vigilance and increased in San Francisco, but not your bones in Viet Nam— military spending. actually, in light of the AIDS epidemic, the former is no In a further linguistic displacement, military longer advisable either. Tourists are urged to spend their enterprises are described in medical terms. The dollars on native soil rather than wasting them in “retaliatory” air attack against Libya was repeatedly ungrateful foreign nations. We are terrorized by the referred to in the media as a “surgical strike.” carefully domestic press’ accounts of terrorism against U.S. citizens aimed at excising only the undesirable elements of that foolhardy enough to leave their own shores. We could be country—Khadafi’s 15-month-old daughter, for example. taken hostage at any moment by foreigners characterized The precision and cleanliness we were meant to infer by a San Francisco television commentator as “creeps from the medical metaphor was both underscored and whose names I can't even pronounce." As long as there belied by TV coverage of wounded Libyan children and are Americans, or even parts of Americans abroad, the adults in hospital beds—as if, somehow, the U.S. armed American nation is not “whole." forces had been the doctors rather than the disease, Aside from the preoccupation with the physical operating on them with our bombers “for their own condition and retrieval of the bodies of the Challenger good"—after all, here they are recuperating. More recently crew, which overlapped roughly with the release ofRambo, and even more dramatically, the Persian Gulf War was MIAs and KIAs in Viet Nam constitute the most dramatic touted as a clean and again, 'surgical' war—a designer version of this phenomenon. According to the government war for television, as it were. Not only, we were told, were the numbers of missing personnel in Viet Nam are far less there no Iraqi casulaties to speak of (literally, that is: the than in other American wars of this century. Captain hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed were not spoken Douglas Clarke has pointed out, in his book The Missing about in the mainstream media); but American troops Man: Politics and the MIA, that the number of MIAs were spoken of as if they were virtually in no danger initially unaccounted for in Viet Nam was two thousand because the sophistication of their long-distance radar five hundred forty-six, or 5% of the fatalities, compared weaponry put them out of the range of retaliation. However, to eight thousand, four hundred six in Korea, or about months after the war's end, though we still hear precious 25% of all deaths, and almost eighty thousand in WW1I, little about Iraqi suffering, many articles have appeared which comprised 22% of fatalities. By 1978, moreover, attesting to the post-traumatic stress suffered by members the number of Viet Nam war MIAs had been reduced to of the U.S. military. In this case, there were not images of 282, an almost insignificant number in material terms (7- Baghdad's wounded available to the general public, and 11). And yet the furor continues to resurface periodically, news on American suffering was delayed until it could be fueled by such media extravaganzas as Rambo. Public safely dehistoricized and repackaged as a quasi-natural interest in the MIAs, from the popularity of Rambo to the aftereffect of the stressful but responsible business-as- ongoing grief and uncertainty of the families of the usual of a team of world-class Hippocrateses. missing, makes them a symbolically charged group. This Accompanying the conflation oft he ruler's body with symbolism currently serves the dominant conservatism. the nation is a kind of national autism: the objectifying of According to this world view, the shame of Viet Nam is not the body politic renders that state incapable of that we initially intervened—it is that we didn't win. Viet acknowledging other states. If the country is one Nam is unfinished business because there was no clear threatened and monolithic organism, other countries victory for the United States; the conflict can thus be seen can only be perceived as either inert resources for our as open-ended and unresolved. The MIA issue, especially further survival or hostile obstacles to that survival. The the possibility that some of the men are still living United States alienates itself from other nations on the captives who need rescue, offers the perfect opening for planet as it declares itself an outlaw state willing, if a re-engagement of public indignation and a chance to necessary to "go it alone" (the phrase has been used both resettle the case. Bruce Franklin's book MIA, or, by the U.S. defending its attack on Libya and by South Mythmaking in America (which has come out as this Africa defending its emergency measures in the face of article goes to press) details the history of the post-Viet increased international pressure to end apartheid). As Nam war MIA/POW obsession. He documents the U.S. State Department spokespeople issued these claims of government's initial complicity in fostering the belief in self-sufficiency, an obsession with national boundaries living MIAs, the role of the presidents (from Nixon through and the physical integrity ofthe nation sets in. Replicating Bush) in supporting or appearing for campaign purposes on the national level the anatomical ideology encouraged to support the cause, and the subsequent estrangement by the religious right, the U.S. is to be bom again into a of the government from the MIA/POW institutions state of virgo intacla, impenetrable from without— (National Leauge of Families, et al.) and movement it witness the increasingly stringent immigration laws and created, as the latter institutions and spin-off the paramilitary role of border patrols and the INS. (In organizations came to feel that ‘bureaucratic officials' in connection with this point. I'd like to mention John Washington were as obfuscatory and insensitive as the Borneman's Journal of Popular Culture article, new Viet government, and as repeated diplomatic and tellingly entitled “Emigres as Bullets/Immigration as military forays into Viet Nam failed to unearth or reveal Penetration," an analysis of the homophobia in popular any signs of Americans, living or dead. (It is a current discourse surrounding the U.S. reception of the 1980s point of interest that Franklin also documents Ross wave of Cuban immigrants.) Accompanying the terror of Perot's pivotal role in establishing and supporting these contamination and/or sexual penetration from without MIA/POW institutions.) is a fear of escape from wilhin. It's okay to leave your heart

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In addition to the obvious and predominant reason and ghostly) speaks poignantly to professional sports as for the prominence of MIA publicity, there is also a further an elaborately glamorized form of physical abuse, neglect implication that it is sacrilege to allow American remains and exploitation. The two versions of fetishization, of to rest in a Third World—and socialist—country. This is course, mirror each other. Where is the “real" body Gaetti true not simply because Viet Nam is a Third World yearns for? What inner battlefield is it strewn over? What socialist country, and not simply because the remains kind of care would heal it? are proof of valorous service and thus their return, under The imagistic splitting and displacement go on, the guidelines of the Geneva Convention, constitutes a taking form in the “weirdest... dogmas" and “genuine way of honoring and accounting for the dead; those 282 obsessions defying... the rudiments of human and political unaccounted-for, missing people haunt us, pointing to a reason," snowballing into violent scenarios which would dispersal rather than a concentration, a threatening lack be hypocritical were they not so clearly symptoms of of closure not just of the war as event, but of physical national psychic dysfunction. Far from warning against boundaries. Those hypothetical ungathered bodies call war, the mental image of unreturned servicemen and our own bodies into question, and in particular, our civic their physical condition has come to justify continued and communal body, the body politic. The MLAs become war against others. (I have to mention that Platoon, the the invisible Kings whose spiritual bodies will be restored first in a new generation of Viet Nam films, does attempt only through the restoration of their physical remains. to recoup the critical potential of these metaphors. The Even more poignant and unsettling than the image of most powerfully assaultive image of the movie is that of dead bodies is the far-fetched but gnawing possibility the “heroic"—that is, dope-smoking and peace-loving— that some of the living MIAs have chosen to stay in Sgt. Elias abandoned to the mercies of the Viet Cong, Communist territory. If these men are not truly insane, reaching up to the U.S. Army helicopter as it takes off like Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, their possible existence without him. In this case the abandonment of the good threatens our sense of ideological certitude. soldier epitomizes not American failure to win a just war. It has often been observed that the Viet Nam War was but American military insensitivity and fear as the coreol the first television war. Although the images were primarily our involvement in Viet Nam in the first place. However, those of disfigured Viet rather than American bodies, even this film, which acknowledges ambivalence on the television coverage offered a somewhat palpable, if still part of the American military and valorizes the soldiers highly mediated, sense of the horrors of war. These who doubt the ethics of their involvement, does not grant nightly scenes of carnage in American livingrooms fueled the humanity of the 'enemy.'The dramatic scene of Elias' the public indignation that eventually led to our withdrawal martyrdom/apotheosis relies for its emotional power on from the conflict. But again, through the peculiar hyperreal the assumption and filmic depiction of the North medium of television, that sense of horror was displaced Vietnamese as an entymological swarm beyond human and alienated. Physical suffering was made spectacle for appeal). the American public; body parts on display became the As each individual “set of remains" sporadically war. Bodies became fetishes that symbolized the war. returned to us by the Viet government has been carefully Now, the sight of those Viet bodies on television is gone, and separately examined to ensure its singularity and and the horrors of war become emblematized by the authenticity, the United States has supported the invocation of American bodies left in Viet Nam. The proliferation, in El Salvador, of mass graves of death indignation aroused against the war by the sight of squad victims, mutilated and dismembered beyond maimed Asian bodies is transmuted into indignation at recognition and differentiation, strategically placed on having lost the war; the absent and imagined bodies of well-traveled paths for shock effect. A member of the our countrymen stand in metonymically for that loss. SEALs, an elite Navy group, testifies in A1 Santoli’s oral Pertinent here is Minnesota Twins' baseman Gary history of the Viet Nam war that this technique was tried Gaetti and his obsession with the MIA/POW issue. It is no in out in Viet Nam: accident, I believe, that a professional athlete, whose sole use value in the public eye and exchange value is his Each impact you had in that area was to be mortal and ever-aging body and whose body, moreover, interpreted in terms of its terrorist potential, is on constant public display, should choose this phantom terrifying the people... We were looking for the cause as the only charity to which he will devote his maximum impact of that experience... Sometimes energy and time. American athletes are, like soldiers, we’d paint green on their face, which would mean simultaneously valued and devalued as bodies in the that the frogmen had been there... the body interest of someone else's economic gain—as cannon would be dismembered... like an ear would be fodder and/or spectacle, who, when they sign on for the missing or... the PRUs would... cut the liver out job, effectively relinquish their right to bodily privacy and and take a bite out of it... Finding a loved one with self-determination; who can be “traded," “stationed," a green face and stabbed—in the middle of the drug-tested, drugged, and then superficially run through road—was incredible terror (219-220). quick-fix treatments to get off drugs and who are otherwise deprived of free choice and movement. Behind a flimsy Certain innovative “anti-personnel" weapons screen of hero worship, they are fundamentally treated as designed by American weaponsmakers are intended to slaves. The displacement of Gaetti's concern over his own maim rather than kill—for instance, the that body (fetishized as intactand healthy) onto the apocryphal explodes at waist level and maims the genitals—because bodies of “forgotten servicemen" (fetishized as fragmented “research has shown" that it is more demoralizing to a

81 Summer-FaU, 1992 ViET (Naivi G eneration VoIume 4 NuivibcR >-4 population to confront mutilation and dismemberment, objectification is re-engaged. The frogman terrorist I whether in the living or dead, on a daily basis than to lose quoted earlier concedes as much pointblank: lives. In fact, according to Howard Zinn's A People's History o f the United States, this technique has a long About a third of the guys that were in my unit are history in Euro-America. The strategy of Indian genocide still in. They go out on secret operations. And it’s was to surprise and kill noncombatants—women and only conjecture, but I know enough about the children—in order to demoralize combatant forces, whose way that group works and I was in Guatemala warriorship per se was usually far superior to the this summer (1978 or 9?) and I was noticing how Europeans'; this demoralization, of course, facilitated the the guerillas work down there. The SEALs go step toward complete genocide of the perceived enemy. into... Central America and Latin American Shulte-Sasse points out quite rightly that the attack countries and do the training for right-wing on Libya was “not primarily an act of foreign policy" but guerrilla or terrorist units. I have to conclude one of domestic policy, through its media status as mass that all of that in Vietnam was an advanced spectacle. (125-126) Our government seems to be applying bootcamp to train operatives for other kinds of... assiduously this finding that public display of unwhole activities that the United States runs all over the bodies undermines a citizenry’s morale. By bombarding world (213). us with media coverage of the MIAs and the body parts of the Challenger victims, by fostering and playing on an Each instance of dismemberment and mutilation finds obsession with remnants and relics of the torn-apart its analogue, comically or horrifically psychologized, in bodies of its own citizens, the state, in the interest of the American media's fetishizing of American bodies and protecting us. trains against its own people a psychological American boundaries. version of the military techniques developed and tested in It seems bitterly appropriate that the nation that Southeast Asia and continually perfected in Latin America first sundered the atom at the cost of 40,000 Japanese and elsewhere. As other nations get physically terrorized and Korean lives is now itself obsessed, in a dazzling feat by wholesale slaughter, our television and movie screen of paranoid self-projection, with guarding the intactness and newspapers become weapons trained against us. A not only of the “nuclear" family but of its own concretized few selected images of noble carnage, talked about but concept of “indivisible" nationhood—exclusive, rarely shown, are multiplied over and over by impermeable, a closed and suffocating system. This disproportionate media attention. (For example, the case beast has no birth canal; which way out of the belly? of the MIAs and the Challenger crew: tragic dismemberment is portrayed as self-sacrifice.) Works Cited It could certainly be argued that the two forms of terrorism cannot be considered equivalent, and that Clarke, Captain Douglas, The Missing Man: Politics actual physical violence poses a terror far greater than and the MIA (Washington, DC: National Defense media violence. However, one could conjecture that the University Press) 1979. results have proven almost the opposite of what one Franklin, H. Bruce, MIA, or, Mythmaking in America might expect; in the Third World countries terrorized by (New York: Lawrence Hill) 1992. physical U.S. violence, there has in fact been an Kantorowicz, Ernst, The King's Two Bodies: A Study in increasingly strong anti-American resolve and more Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, NJ: willingness toward organized oppositional activity; in the Princeton University Press) 1957. United States, the state terrorism disseminated against Santoli, Al. Everything We Had (New York: Ballantine) its own people through the media does seem to sap the 1981. public of its critical powers. Moreover, intentional or not. Schulte-Sasse, Jochen, "Electronic Media and Cultural there is a projection of this terrorism onto foreign agency, Politics in the Reagan Era: The Attack on Libya and such that, somehow, Khadafi and assorted Communists— Hands Across America as Media Events," Cultural Viet, Cuban, or Russian—end up implicated not only in Critique (Winter 1987-88): 123-152. the attack on Libya [(i.e., the Libyans “deserved it")] but Zinn, Howard. A People's History o f the United States even, indirectly, in such unrelated incidents as the (New York: Harper Colophon) 1980. Challenger disaster. (There was a brief and apocryphal rumor that Soviet sabotage was behind the blowup.) What is the purpose in a nation's government demoralizing its own people? As in a dysfunctional nuclear family, the urge to protect becomes the compulsion to kill spirit and liveliness. It seems clear that the prevailing national atmosphere, “(expressions) of an enfeebled neoconservative social policy" (Schulte-Sasse; 126), feeds a public paranoia that would justify a so-called strong defense. The development of this defense would require further experimentation with weaponry and terrorist techniques, and more living laboratories to replace Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos. The cycle of aggression and

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suddenly unified mass shouted back "BLACK POWER!” WhAT D o W e W ant? whereupon Willie Ricks leaped up beside Carmichael and shouted to the crowd: “What do you want?" “BLACK William M. King, Black Studies Program, University of POWER!" “What do you want?" “BLACK POWER!” “What Colorado. Boulder 80309. do you want?” “BLACK POWER!! BLACK POWER!!! BLACK POWER!!!!” Thursday, 16 June 1966. It was one of those long hot The national response was galvanic. Here, at last, evenings that presage the beginning of another sultry was something that both southern Blacks and those in Mississippi summer. Some eleven days earlier, James the northern colonial enclaves, who previously had not Meredith, who had enrolled under federal escort at the been able to directly relate to the modem Civil Rights University of Mississippi in 1962, was shot and wounded Movement with its focus on de jure segregation and from ambush while attempting to march across the state public accommodations discrimination (mitigated to prove that black people no longer had anything to fear. somewhat by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting As he was recuperating in a Memphis hospital, members Rights Act of 1965), could pursue as a remedy for their of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee problems— viz, the acquisition of power. For what was (SNCC), The Southern Christian Leadership Conference clear by that time was that the problems of black people (SCLC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), all whether North or South of the Mason-Dixon were being of whom had been involved in organizing activity and recognized as increasingly more similar in character. getting black people registered to vote, moved to continue They lacked the power to influence the events which the march he had started. affected their life chances in some very immediate and Although small in numbers when it resumed (perhaps direct ways. 150 people, writes Cleveland Sellers), the marchers knew that they were headed for SNCC territory and would have Well do I remember a special Sunday airing of the little difficulty turning out persons to hear the Reverend NBC news program Meet The Press shortly after King, Floyd McKissick, Willie Ricks (who was responsible Carmichael’s pronouncement which featured twelve black for shortening the phrase “Black Power for Black People" leaders seated in two tiers responding to questions from to "Black Power" the rallying cry that had been used to assembled media representatives. gather folks in earlier organizing efforts) or Stokely Well, also, do I remember McKissick's response to a Carmichael for the nightly mass meetings at the end of a question to define this new, potentially explosive term. day’s trek. For as James Foreman was later to write. “Black Power When they reached Greenwood, where Stokely was was not defined adequately at the time. If it had been, the well known because of his work during the Freedom government and its Negroes might not have been able to Summer campaign of 1964, they began to put up their co-opt the term. Here, we in SNCC must assume some tents on the grounds of a local black school as before only blame, for the term received no precise definition from us. to be stopped by the stale police who argued that they We were stunned and overwhelmed by its immediate could not do so without permission of the local school success. The most radical definition of Black Power that board. we could give at the time was ‘power for black people.' Disobeying the police order. Carmichael walked over Thus the door was left open for opportunists to define the put his hand on a tent and was immediately arrested term in any manner they chose." along with two others and taken directly to jail where he What McKissick said, and his remarks may have was incarcerated for six hours and released only moments compounded the confusion evident in the country at before the rally began. large about the meaning of the term given the far- Meanwhile a crowd of perhaps as many as three reaching effect of the mass media, was “anyone who has thousand persons (the New York Times and several been as far as the sixth grade knows what black is. And other sources estimated the crowd at 600) had begun to anyone who has been as far as the sixth grade knows assemble in the city park. The dominant feeling exhibited what power is. The problem arises when the two words by the gathered throng was one of anger at the arrests— are put together meaning we want what others who have only the latest example of a long train of abuses that had gone before us want." been visited upon the black people of the Delta since their But is this all there is to Black Power? Is there involuntary immigration to the area during slavery times. nothing more: something that can carry the meaning of That feeling was exacerbated by the fiery speeches of the concept beyond the simplistic we want what others McKissick, King and Ricks who preceded Carmichael to who have gone before us want? These questions are the hastily improvised platform, the back of a flatbed especially crucial in light not only of the historical truck. experiences of black people in the United States but also As Stokely moved forward to speak, he was greeted the prevailing cultural myth that we are somehow a more by a huge roar from the crowd which he acknowledged by humane people untainted by an exclusionist, exploitative waving a clenched fist in the air. “This is the twenty- society in which we have been coercively socialized to seventh time I have been arrested," he told them, “and I espouse a particular value orientation, know our proper ain't going to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop place and stay in it, but yet who would run the world them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over. We differently if only we were in charge. been saying freedom for six years and we ain't got nothin'. Power, as I have defined the term for my students What we gonna start saying now is Black Power!” The over the years, is the ability to shape reality. It is Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIume 4 N

something we all possess irrespective of the energy and to extant political institutions could Black Power be effort we put into denying that we are powerless. Implicit realized. Even Richard Nixon, after his election, embraced in this definition, moreover, is the notion that resistance Black Power provided it was redefined as black capitalism, to the exertion of that power can be overcome, bypassed the ultimate co-optation, to which many of us responded or redirected contingent upon the manner of presentation with the question—"In what way are we benefitted if all and the patience one exhibits in pursuit of the correct that is done is change the color of the capitalists who timing for the realization of one's desires, all other things exploit us?" Clearly, and painfully, what we learned from being equal. all of this was the efficacy with which incumbency The amount of power one possesses, however, is usurps. relative. That is it is a function of the position (the most And now, some 26 years later, where are we? Granted, important variable in the game of power) one holds in a the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts have increased group, organization, society, whatever, to which one the number of black publicly elected officials. Granted belongs and from which one secures identity and a sense also is the fact that there are now more middle class of what is possible. African Americans embracing the consumerist mentality Power is comprised of material things like money than was the case before. But the real truth of the matter and property, and immaterial items like knowledge and is that there are now more poor black people, more prestige which are parceled out in a manner that seeks to despair, more hunger, more imprisonment, more preserve the differential distribution of opportunity so as alienation abroad in this land of the free and home of the to sustain the position and privileges of those who brave than before as well. The structures that oppress us, established the initial hierarchical ordering from which the mechanisms that limit our opportunities are still very they directly benefit (how effectively this is the case is much in place. America is still very much confounded debatable given the normalcy of change in life and certain and befuddled with the problem of race even as it seeks social institutions created to effect the illusion of certainty ever more futilely to integrate (a euphemism for the in an otherwise ambiguous world). This differential continuance of white supremacy) among its huddled distribution is reinforced by the presence of lexan doors masses the dispossessed of Southeast Asia, Latin America and glass ceilings keyed to certain ascriptive and Eastern Europe, all of whom want what others before characteristics (e.g. race, gender) over which the petitioners them want. have little, if any, influence. One may look through both And so we are left with the question of where do we to the other side but we can transit these barriers only go from here. What do we do now? after we have been reconstructed in accordance with the In a sense, what I believe we must do is return to criteria of those who guard the portals of admittance to some of those issues we raised along Highway 51 in the kingdom. That is only after we have been properly Mississippi, in Harlem, Chicago, Watts and elsewhere. vetted to insure that we are not a threat to the status quo. These were the issues of value and consciousness, vectors Clearly the objective here is one of preventing the present of the psychological realm which we but briefly explored from becoming the past. and set aside for the moment because we could see at the And finally, power differs from authority in that the time that they were complex and could not be reconciled latter is a socially legitimized, purposeful expression of overnight. We have to go back to the realization I noted control whose continuance is based on carefully cultivating above that all of us have power and that we must willfully the faith of the governed to believe that those they have assume this power before we can renew the quest of “elected to represent" them have their best interests in shaping our own destinies. mind as they exercise their granted powers. For as First, we must identify the ways in which we resist Kenneth Clark observed in 1969, “those in power seldom change in ourselves and the institutions we embrace. give up more than is necessary to maintain control: for Second, we must more effectively articulate our needs as control is requisite to the orderly exercise of authority." we see them not as they are seen for us by others. Third, Accordingly, in thedaysafterGreenwood. numerous we must return to the buildingofindependent institutions efforts were mounted to discredit, transform or destroy in much the same fashion we did in the 60s but with the the newly enunciated concept (which in actuality had a benefit, this time, of what we have learned from our long histoiy of usage in the black community having been failures of the past. For if we have learned nothing else it employed in years past by politicians and writers alike) is that for all of its so-called democratic rhetoric, the and those who advocated Black Power “by associating it Un ited States is a society that fears and loathes difference. with violence and by making the use ofviolence illegitimate All too often difference is transformed into deviance and contrary to the 'American way,'" irrespective of H. which is then isolated, corralled and contained lest it Rap Brown's prescient observation that "Violence is as contaminate the status quo. This is the hallmark of a American as cherry pie!" loss-prevent ion oriented society not a progressive There was a series of “Black Power Conferences" organization addressing itself to the developmental wherein the admitted and easily evident revolutionary potential of its citizens. And finally, in concert with (writes Foreman, the “government (knew] that whites others, we must take up the challenge of effecting a more [had] power and blacks [did] not" thus, the “idea of poor viable economic democracy in America. Not only is the black people united for power represented a major threat present system incapable of creating enough jobs for all to white America") thrust was muted or redirected. of those who want to work (to say nothing of desirable Captive black politicians were trotted out before the employment which is a wholly different issue altogether) public who contended that only by electing more Negroes the continued emphasis on material development at the

8 4 Summer-FaU, 1992 ViET INaivi G eneratio n Volume 4 INuimbcR ?-4

Doi Moi in Foreign Relations expense of human resource development is both short­ sighted and laden with revolutionary implications. For in Since November 1989 the Institute of International the words of the old-time religion—Does not the devil find Relations under the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry has work for idle fingers? W hat do you think? begun to produce a publication, called Quan He QuocTe (International Relations). It is a public relations exercise aimed at improving the Ministry’s image. It introduces a variety of international affairs and comments on them. At the same time it is a sophisticated magazine filled with a wide variety of international events reporting and photographs. Examples are Prince Ayanomiya's marriage to Kiko Kawashima and the inclusion of a large picture of ViET Na m a Iter t He 7t H P a r t y C onqress a Japanese popular singer, Miho Nakayama, on the back cover of the same issue. In this writer's analysis, the By Tadashi Mio, Faculty o f International Relations, Daito central party leadership and the government reached Bunka University, 560, Iwadono, Higashi Matsuyama-Shi, consensus in the fall of 1989 on a shift to an open-door Saitama-Ken, Japan, 355, tel: 0493-34-3111, ext. 550. foreign policy. It is interesting to note that the launching of this new publication was timed to follow on this The Features of Doi Moi decision. The January 1990 issue of the magazine contained The “doi moi" (renovation) policy, which the Vietnamese an interview with Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach, Communist Party (CPVN) adopted at its 6th Congress in entitled, “The World Change and Our New Thinking." In December 1986, essentially denounces political pluralism the interview, Thach said as follows: but accepts extensive pluralism in economic fields. This striking contrast or contradiction between political We should not hold on to the thinking of forty conservatism and economic pragmatism differs basically years ago in coping with the current changes in from Gorbachev’s perestroika, while sharing common the world. The role of the socialist countries is features with China's reform policy. very important, but it is not just the socialist A review of the past four-and-a-half years' camp that determines the development of human implementation of the doi moi policy confirms Vietnam’s society. We should not be prejudiced about the basic stand in favor of retaining one-party rule in order to accomplishments of the capitalist system for the maintain political stability which is necessary to sustain last two hundred years. The class of exploiters economic viability. Doi moi is primarily the practice of was not a monster in history. We should recognize "democracy" in economic fields and only secondarily the that they also played a certain useful role in the gradual introduction of political democracy. The 7th history. Marxism would not have been born Party Congress, held in June 1991, was significant in without a bourgeoisie. Socialism would not have that the party reconfirmed the continuation of this policy come into being without capitalism, the system and for the fact that it decided on a new central leadership that exploits people. This is historical which would ensure its more effective implementation. dialecticism.2 Doi moi clearly made certain achievements in the face of serious economic and social problems. This paper He dared to make these remarks which angered the does not intend to deal with all political, economic, conservatives because, in effect, he wanted to say the diplomatic, and social developments in Vietnam since the following: introduction of the doi moi policy. The writer's comprehensive assessment of it has been attempted Today production capability is highly developed elsewhere and his conclusion alone may be repeated: No and is making the world into an integrated matter which aspect of Vietnamese life is examined, be it market. We do and should possess the conditions political, economic, or social, the doi moi policy as applied that can make complete use of these highly to it would today face a crisis of bankruptcy, had there not developed production capabilities of the world. been economic assistance from the West.1 In accordance with Politburo Resolution No. 13, This writer is not a specialist in Vietnam's military which is a resolution about external relations, affairs, but in this paper he will attempt to analyze its we must make full use of the world market, in current military situation primarily from the standpoint order to enhance, within a relatively lively short of foreign and defense policies after the 7th Party Congress, period, our own economy which has fallen twenty because such an approach is useful and effective in to twenty-five years behind the world economy. articulating the problems connected with those policies. In his analysis, the writer has mainly relied upon In the interview Nguyen Co Thach explained the periodicals put out by the Vietnamese Communist Party, features of Politburo Resolution No. 13 as follows: the Vietnamese People’s Army and the Foreign Ministry. His own trips to Vietnam, once or twice a year, have also The main cause of the enormous changes in provided him with a useful opportunity to gather socialist countries does not lie in an imperialist information and make firsthand observations. conspiracy, but in the fact that the capitalist

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camp has overcome the world economic crises of The foreign policy line adopted by the 7th Party 1970-1980 [the oil crisis) by applying the fruits Congress reaffirmed the spirit of Resolution No. 13. Yet of scientific and technological learning to Foreign Minister Thach, a realist, lot his position in the production, by strengthening productivity and Politburo and was not renominated by the National production capability, and by expanding Assembly who had met after the Party Congress. One can international economic cooperation. Meanwhile, speculate that there are two reasons for this. One is that socialist countries have indulged themselves in Thach was known to be anti-China. The other is that he the autarchical economic system of their own had antagonized the conservative elements within the making, thus both failing to improve the living military, who had supported his open-door diplomacy conditions of the people and causing them and had reduced the size of the army. They had anticipated disappointment. [Summary by the writer. a liftingofthe embargo, but had been gravely disappointed. The disarmament issue will be dealt with again in the Thach argued here that “the overall serious crises third section. Still another reason for Thach's being being faced by socialist countries" was the fault of their ousted as Foreign Minister by the National Assembly was own economic mismanagement and rigid political systems, his alleged nepotism. He is said to have given favorable and not that of imperialist interference. The conservative treatment to his relatives by employing them in his elements within the Party's Central Committee and the ministry. Government could not have voiced such flexible and There is also a view that his ouster was due in part realistic views. According to Thach, T h e implementation to his being anti-Japanese. This writer thinks that this of Resolution No. 13 involved a year-and-a-half-long idea is way off the mark. I record the following to support struggle between the old and the new thinking of the my view. To the best of my knowledge, the foreign direction of foreign policy." minister had never attended any party organized by the During the trip to Hanoi that this writer made in Japanese Embassy in Hanoi until the fall of 1990, when November-December 1989, he learned that it was only Michio Watanabe called upon Party Secretary Nguyen early in early December that this foreign policy controversy Van Linh and Prime Minister Do Muoi. The Embassy had finally been resolved. The 7th Plenum of the Party's arranged a reception for Watanabe but did not send Central Committee, held in August 1989, had adopted a Thach an invitation to it. They were surprised, therefore, resolution on foreign policy which accorded with the when Thach himself expressed a wish to, and did indeed demands of the conservative forces. This was, simply, a attend, the reception. As far as this writer knows, and as dogmatic reiteration of Lenin's theory of imperialism.3 is widely believed, the foreign minister has an affinity Whenever this writer visits Hanoi, he always makes with Japan, which is said to go back to the anti-French a point of holding discussions with high-ranking scholars guerrilla waryears when he became comrades with an ex- at the institute of Social Sciences of Vietnam, a think- Japanese Army soldier who joined the Vietnamese Army tank of the Central Committee. When I visited Hanoi in and fought beside him. November-December 1989,1 questioned members of the institute as to why the 7th Plenum o f the Central Doi Moi in National Defense Strategy and Its Committee had adopted such an obsolete resolution, and Aftereffects argued that it was nonsense for the Party to make such anticapitalist pronouncements while expecting economic The boldest part of the doi moi policy that the Nguyen Van aid from the West. To my surprise, they expressed full Linh government implemented during its four years agreement with my view, and told me that they had in fact concerned “strategic adjustments with regard to national conveyed to the Politburo their criticism of this defense," namely, disarmament. Tap Chi Cong San, the anachronistic resolution. The Politburo had in turn replied mouthpiece of the Party’s Central Committee, explained that they were considering revising their line on the the policy as follows: international situation. The Politburo's Resolution No. 13 had thus come into being. Doi moi has been implemented in military fields In a speech before the National Assembly in late according to the doi moi line adopted by the 6th 1989, Vo Chi Cong, Chair of the Council of State, explained Party Congress. The method adopted was the the cause of the crises being faced by all the socialist "adjustment" or “revision of national defense countries, using much the same logic as had been used strategy." This was a measure intended to meet in Resolution No. IS.1 This same argument also ran the new situation and new tasks and to conform through an article entitled, “Some Observations on the with doi moi in other fields.5 State of Socialist Countries in 1989," published in the December 1989 issue of Quart He Quoc Te. It should be This policy stemmed from Politburo Resolution No. 2 on noted that in the above-mentioned interview Foreign the tasks for national defense. Only recently was it Minister Thach talked as if Resolution No. 13 had been a learned that the resolution was adopted in mid-1987.® victory for all those who had favored the change. However, its full text remains unpublished. It was the Apparently, however, it was the chorus of those middle­ communique of the 6th Plenum of the 6th Party Congress, ranking party cadres and intellectuals, who had strongly adopted in March 1989, that the newspapers and criticized and condemned the views of the Central magazines of the Communist Party first referred to as Committee and the Government that had actually led to dealing with adjustments in national defense strategy. the realistic Resolution No. 13. The communique highlighted the following as one of the

86 Summer-Fail, 1992 ViET Naim G eneration VoIume 4 NuMbER ?-4 achievements made under doi moi during the past two Those who were demobilized and have already found years: employment are the fortunate few. Many others are unable to get jobs in conditions of fifteen to twenty We have shifted to the work of political security percent unemployment. Opportunities for veterans to and defense that can meet the new situation, by seek jobs in other socialist countries such as the Soviet adjusting national defense strategy, restricting Union and East European states as “exported labor" have missions at each battle field, reducing the size of now dried up due to the political turmoil and deteriorating troops, trimming the standing forces, and economic conditions in those countries. Workers who strengthening the lineup for a people's war.7 had gone to the Middle East were obliged to return home at the outbreak of the Gulf War. Subsequently, the Party and the People's Army published Disarmament is an inseparable part of the doi moi fragmentary information on this policy in their official policy under the Nguyen Van Linh government, but its newspapers and magazines, on five different occasions. main aftereffect, as set out here, is its partial contribution If such information is put together, the primary outcome to the prevalence of economic and social conditions of the past four years' adjustments in national defense which enable the conservatives to continue to hold sway. strategy appears to be the restraint of armed conflict These facts should not, however, imply that the along the Chinese border and in the South China Sea, the Vietnamese People’s Army tends to be conservative. withdrawal of troops from Cambodia, the reduction of Quan Doi Nhan Dan, the organ of the People’s Army, regular troops, the scaling down of the defense budget, which publishes its Saturday edition in tabloid size and the relocation of armed forces on a national scale, and the color, used every week to carry colored pictures of attractive strengthening of the militia and self-defense troops. By women, Vietnamese and foreign. No criticism seems to the end of 1990, the number of the regular troops had have been made of them as being under the influence of been reduced by 600,000 including 100,000 officers.8 decadent bourgeois culture. Nonetheless, since the 7th Party Congress in June 1991 the Saturday edition of the 1) The Aftereffect of the Disarmament People's Army organ has stopped printing sexy pictures and photographs. This suggests that self-criticism may The extent of the reduction in the defense budget has not have been practiced within the military against excessive been made public. However, Defense Minister Le Due liberalism and democratization. Anh reminisced, after he had left office, about the formidable job of reducing the number of the regular 2) “Peaceful Evolution” and “Special troops, partly because of budget shortage. He said: Relationships" among the Indochinese Countries

The job was by no means a simple one. It involved As has been mentioned earlier, one of the main points of very many policy problems. It required enormous adjustment in Vietnam's national defense strategy was expenditure as well as enormous preparation. the withdrawal of troops stationed in Cambodia. This There was no allowance for a temporary increase decision was made in mid-1987, and in May of the in our defense budget to implement the reduction following year Politburo Resolution No. 13, resolving a of troops. We had to reduce the size of the shift to a more realistic foreign policy was promulgated. military and the defense budget in phases. That month the government also planned to withdraw Naturally, under these circumstances, the troops 50,000 troops from Cambodia, and, in January 1989, it confronted great difficulties.9 publicized a further plan to withdraw all troops by the end of September. These moves by Vietnam were in accord Among the “great difficulties" which the troops with statements made by the Heng Samrin government. confronted were the worsening of living conditions, caused In April 1998 Cambodia revised its constitution, by serious shortages of food and other daily supplies. The changed the name of the country and its national flag, government cut the subsidy on everyday necessities, in became a neutralist country, and adopted Buddhism as order to ease the burden of the budget deficit. When the the state religion. In July 1989 the Cambodian parliament economy moved to a market economy, the military had to then declared the country permanently neutral, and purchase food and other daily needs at market prices. pledged never to allow any foreign military organizations This led to a reduction in caloric intake by the troops.10 to establish military bases inside the country. The Heng The defense budget cut not only allowed living conditions Samrin government declaration of permanent neutrality of officers and soldiers to deteriorate, but made insufficient has entailed the abandonment of the military alliance essential expenditure on the maintenance and repair of clauses within the Vietnamese-Cambodian Treaty of weapons and equipment as well as on military training.11 Peace, Friendship and Cooperation, which had been These soldiers demobilized under the troop reduction concluded in January 1979. Specifically, it has meant the plan also suffered from worsening living conditions. termination of the “strategic alliance" and the "all-out “Demobilized soldiers have now returned to a normal life cooperative relationship" between the two countries.13 and are enjoying a relaxed family life," said Defense The newspapers and magazines of the Vietnamese Minister Anh, “but they are concerned about the difficulties Communist Party and the People’s Army have since that their families face and the safety of their fellow- stopped referring to Vietnamese-Cambodian relations as soldiers serving in remote areas."12 “special relationships" and “all-out cooperative relationships," which had meant a military alliance.

87 Summer-FaU, 1992 ViET INa m G eneration VoIume 4 NuiVlbER J-4 although they still continue to refer to Vietnamese- the three countries, referred to in the above-mentioned Laotian relations in these terms. An interesting fact is joint press statement of the three party delegations, that the People's Army publications apparently opposed should only be applied to the relationship between Vietnam the demise of these special terms in a variety of complicated and Laos.16 It differed in this regard from Que’s article. ways.14 Since Vietnam has started to adjust its national defense However, while the Communist Party organized strategy, Nhan Dans line seems to be dominant within grassroots discussions on the Draft of the New Political the Party’s central leadership, and Que’s argument Platform, the mass media were reviving the argument in therefore represents only the minority view. favor of strengtheningvigilance against so-called “peaceful evolution." This, they claimed, was nothing other than 3) Opposition to “New Thinking” Diplomacy the overthrow of socialism by lawful means, employed by imperialist forces. This argument was based on the As was mentioned earlier, the argument which warned suspicion that a conspiracy of “peaceful evolution" partly against “peaceful evolution" and “the unchanging nature contributed to the heightening of political turmoil in the of imperialism" emerged at the 7th Plenum of the Central Soviet Union and East European countries. Vigilance Committee in August 1989. It then faded slightly as the against conspiracy ofpeaceful evolution" in turn provided “new thinking" foreign policy line, expressed in the a basis for the argument which reinforced the importance Politburo’s Resolution No. 13, began to prevail in the of “special" and "all-out cooperative" relationships among government and the Party after the fall of that year. the three Indochinese countries. However, a more conservative view seems to have revived An example of this is an article that appeared in the with the deterioration of the situations in the Soviet February 1991 issue of Quoc Phong Toan Dan, the Union and East Europe, and with the breakup of the Gulf organ of the central organization of the People's Army. It crisis. This is because the United States in its foreign was written by Pham Xuan Que of the Army's Central policy dealings gained a great deal of confidence in Committee on Foreign Relations. In his article entitled, resolving the Gulf crisis, and this has added fuel to the “Relationships among Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in fire of conservatism which permeates all segments of the New Circumstances," the author stated that, under Vietnamese society. A view within the military which is these new conditions, the three countries maintained worthy note is that “imperialists agitate for a plural party “voluntary and equal relations." It argued that they system as a means to promote 'peaceful evolution,' and should abandon any hierarchical system and regain that it is a conspiracy to turn the armed forces into the mutual respect for independence and noninterference in army of a bourgeoisie." Major General Nguyen Huy Hieu, each other's internal affairs, that they should share their for instance, contributed an article to the January 1991 responsibilities according to their respective capabilities, issue of Quoc Phong Toan Dan. The Commander of Quyet and that they should attach importance to economic and Thank Army Corps, the general said the following in his cultural cooperation between them. However, the author article, “Show Allegiance toUncle Ho's Work of Revolution also made the point that “in the field of the defense of the and Ensure the Defense of the Socialist System:" fatherland, our strategy for defense and security is still based on mutual assistance among the peoples and the The nature of imperialism never changes. armies of the three countries." Imperialists only change means and styles as This article made great play of the fact that the high- they see fit, in grasping new developments in the level delegations of the three Indochinese parties met in situation. They conspire to undertake “peaceful Vientiane on December 2, 1990, and issued a joint press evolution" in all political, economic, cultural, statement in which they “confirmed their commitment to and ideological fields, while at the same time strengthening close and friendly solidarity as well as an maintaining military power as a means of all-out cooperative relationship." (emphasis added) intimidation. One of the enemy's fields for attack However, according to this article, there were apparently is the political and ideological field. They advocate some who did not support “an all-out cooperative a plural party system, agitating for an extreme relationship" among the three countries. The author was form of democracy and depoliticization of the critical of those few people who hoped that the relationship military. They advocate a plural party system, among the three countries would be downgraded to but their true intention is to push toward a ordinary levels of international relations.15 It is not clear bourgeois democracy and turn the armed forces whether those “few people" were within the military or into the army of a bourgeoisie.17 not. But the article suggests that there is a conflict in Vietnam today between the traditional (conservative) This view was shared not just by the conservatives view and the view held by “new thinkers" regarding the in the military but even by Defense Minister Le Due Anh, nature of the relationships between the Indochinese who was an advocate of the doi moi policy and a promoter states. of adj ustments in national defense strategy.18This trend The view of the “new thinkers" here means those represents an obstacle to the diplomacy of “new thinking," expressed in the Politburo Resolution No. 13 with regard as symbolized in Resolution No. 13. to a revision of “external outlook." What should be noted is that Nhan Dan, the party’s central organ, expressed the opinion at “an all-out cooperative relationship" among

8 8 Suivkvier-FaU, 1992 V iet Nam G eneration VoluME 4 NuMbER 5-4

Prospects for Doi Moi Notes 1 Mio Tadashi, “Nishigawa no enjo nashi dewa Bctonamu was The doi moi policy has brought improvements in living hasan suru" (Under the prolonged embargo Vietnam’s doi moi conditions to some extent. But the introduction of a faces a bankruptcy), S e k a i Shuho No. 62 (2 Jul 1991). 3 Quan He Quoc Te, Hanoi, No. 1 (Jan 1991). market economy is polarizing Vietnamese society into a 3 JVhan Dan (29 Aug 1989): 1. small rich class and into the class of the masses who 4 m a n D a n (20 Dec 1989: 1, 4. suffer from the soaring inflation. Meanwhile, graft and 5 Editorial, Tap Chi Cong San, No. 12 (1989): 1. corruption prevail to a catastrophic extent among the ® Quoc Phon Toan Dan, No. 6 (1991): 40. higher echelons of the Party and the government. The 7 N h a n D a n (31 Mar 1989): 1. masses have increasing repugnance for the Party’s rule. ® N h a n D a n (28 Jan 1990): 1,4. The Vietnamese leaders were subtle in their reaction 9 Quoc Phong Toan Dan, No. 12 (1989): 16. to the coup d'etat that occurred in the Soviet Union last Quoc Phong Toan Dan, No. 7 (1989): 12-18. August. Three months after the event took place, the 1 1 N h a n D a n (12 Dec 1990). *2 Quan Doi Nhan Dan (22 Dec 1990): 2. media in Vietnam had not made any comment on it. 13 Sec Tadashi Mio, “Relations among the Three Indochinese However, it appears highly likely that the leadership and Countries: A Decade of the Rise and Fall of'Strategic Alliance’," the media at heart welcomed the coup. in Tadashi Mio, cd., Indochina in Transition: Confrontation The Draft of the New Political Platform contained the or Co-Prosperity (Tokyo: Japan institute of International Affairs) wording that “Vietnam shall make a relentless effort to 1989: 57-79. strengthen and develop traditional friendships and 14 Ibid. cooperative relationships with the Soviet Union and other *5 Quoc Phong Toan Dan, No. 2 (1991): 74. socialist countries." However, the Political Platform Editorial, N h a n D a n (5 Dec 1990): 1. 17 Quoc Phong Toan Dan, No. 1 (1991): 5. adopted at the 7th Party Congress made no reference 18 guan Doi Nhan Dan (22 Dec 1990): 2. either to the Soviet Union or to China. It only stated that “Vietnam shall strengthen and develop traditional friendship and cooperative relationships with socialist countries and brotherly states in the Indochinese Why My DAuqhTER W on't G r o w Up in PERkAsiE Peninsula." Vietnam has normalized relations with China, but, in contrast with the enthusiasm with which the border By W.D. Ehrhart, 6845 Anderson Street, Philadelphia, PA trade is conducted, ordinary party members and 19119 intellectuals are, in general, cool about the new development, and remain vigilant against Chinese Bob Gillman glared at me, his face red with too many hegemony. As was demonstrated by the fact that the highballs and his eyes full of tears. What am I doing here, People’s Army hastened to publish a Vietnamese-Chinese I thought. I should have known better. dictionary even before official normalization had taken I had lived in this town for the first seventeen years place, it seems that the army has been more welcoming of my life. Then I joined the Marines and discovered the of the normalization than anyone else in Vietnam. Le Due world was not what the people of Perkasie thought it was. Anh, who was Defense Minister and has been nominated The town looked different when I came back, but it as Head of State, is known to be pro-China. wasn’t. The January 1991 issue of Quan He Quoc Te, the I had wondered then how I could have missed it. public relations magazine of the Foreign Ministry These people had misled me. And they had done this not published an interesting article entitled, “The Formation out of malice or greed or spite, but out of willful and of a New World Order," which turned out to have been studied ignorance. They believed everything they had translated from China’s journal, Studies in taught me. International Issues. This suggests that the two I drifted in and out of town after I got out of the countries now have similar outlooks on the post-Cold Marines. My father was a Protestant minister, and my War international order. mother was a public school teacher. I’d come home for a As Vietnam can no longer depend upon Soviet month here, six weeks there, three or four months assistance, it cannot help but lean toward China in both between semesters or travels, a succession of jobs and economic and military terms. Both China and Vietnam, apartments. who talk in the vein of “peaceful evolution," are watchful My mother didn’t understand what had happened to for “the unchanging nature of imperialism." (The me, but she knew something had happened. My father Vietnamese expression of “Dien bien hoa binh" is copied didn’t have a clue, but I worked at liking him, and we from the Chinese “He pingyan bian" or peaceful evolution.) managed. I slowed down after awhile enough to In the words of a Vietnamese diplomat, “While we are understand that they were who they were, and I was not dissatisfied with the selfishness of the big powers, we likely to teach them much by shouting. have to endure it to survive." Vietnam has little choice but I kept to myself when I was home, working in the to continue to maintain this attitude toward any big front room of the third floor under the eaves. I had little power, be it China or the United States. contact with the people of Perkasie who had sent me off to kill and die and had thought it a fine thing. I could see soldiers burning their houses, raping their daughters, shooting their sons and husbands, their wives and

89 Summer-FaII, 1992 V iet Naim G eneration VoIume 4 NuiVlbER J-4 mothers, churning their tree-lined streets to rubble. But "Thus we explain the invasion of Grenada," I said, the people of Perkasie could not. “the U.S. Marines in . U.S. soldiers in Honduras, When I first came home. I tried to renew old ourwar against Nicaragua, our military aid to El Salvador, friendships, but my peers were busy with college and and our deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles to families or trying to earn money to go to the East Rock Hill Europe." Tavern. They couldn't see it either. I looked at Frank Grossinger. vice-president of Bucks Sometimes I would not come back for a year or more. County Bank & Trust Company, whose daughter I had I worked on an oil tanker. I drove a forklift, roofed houses, launched on her college career, but he would not make loafed in Miami, taught school. A newapartment building eye-contact with me. went up down by the covered bridge, and a traffic light I spoke about the Vietnam war, describing the was installed at 5th and Market, but the town never Vietnamese struggle for independence, the venality of the changes. Saigon regime we’d invented, the killing reality of American By the Twin Bridges over Branch Creek, I could troops in the ricefields and hamlets of Vietnam. sometimes see Jeff Allison, Max Harris and me chasing “But when the war finally ended," I said, “we were painted turtles through the lily pads at the east end of the content to let it slip away, and then to reconstruct it as we island, but there was no going back to that. Max was would like it to have been." dead, having survived more than two years in Vietnam to From another room, I could hear the dull thump of die one night while riding his motorcycle at high speed a heavy object falling, followed by curses. without a headlight or helmet. His name should have Therein lies the tragedy of the Vietnam war: our been on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, failure to confront it. Thus, when the Russians shoot DC, but it wasn't. Jeff, who had flunked second and fifth down a civilian airliner, we call it an act of barbarism, but grade and had been written off as a dummy by the when we bomb a civilian mental hospital, it's a mistake. Pennridge School District, owned his own home and When the Cubans send military advisors and medical business in Fort Lauderdale. personnel to Nicaragua, we call it Soviet expansionism, Then I got married. My parents were very fond of my but when we send combat troops to Honduras, it's a wife. After a year in Maryland, we moved to Newtown, training exercise. When the Russians send troops into thirty miles from Perkasie, then to Doylestown, only neighboring , we call it an invasion, but when fifteen miles away. I always thought it a coincidence, a we invade a Caribbean island 1500 miles from our matter of jobs, but maybe it was a practical joke on me. shores, it's a matter of national security." One day in 1985, I got a call from Don Davis. He’d The slow rustle of bodies. The clink of silverware and known my older brothers, had been a classmate of one of glass. them. He was the program director of the Perkasie Rotary “How many more will it take?" I said. “How Club. He'd heard I'd published a book, and wanted me to many more times will we send our sons and brothers and come and talk at the next monthly meeting. fathers off to die in places like Lebanon and Grenada “Have you read the book." I asked. He hadn't. “You before we learn that the world will not conform to what we ought to," I said. imagine? Even now, American warships—" “Hey," he said. “You're a hometown boy. You've “Who do you think is keeping the Free World free?" accomplished something." shouted Art Fralich, the plumber, who lived just across “What do you want me to talk about?" I asked. the street from my parents. I looked at Mr. Fralich. “Anything you like," he said. “What do you mean by the Free World?" I said. “Do I thought of my mother. you mean South Africa? Chile? How about Saudi Arabia, One day I had been sitting in the living room watching where they execute unmarried women for having sex? the news with her. It was late 1979 or early 1980, during You mean like , where it's treason to organize the first few months of the Iran hostage crisis. They were a labor union? How about Zaire? There’s a lovely place." showing videos of the hostages and talking about the “What the hell do you know about it?" Wilson harsh conditions under which the hostages had to live. Scheller called out. He owned the hardware store. I “But think of what the Shah did to his own people," looked at Don Davis, but he wasn’t looking at me. my mother had said. “And we supported it all those “Well, I've read a few books about it," I said. years." “You believe everythingyou read?" said Mr. Scheller. “Okay," I told Don Davis. “I believe what I see. I've been to Nicaragua. I've been In the twenty years since I'd joined the Marines, no to Honduras. Where have you been? Plumsteadville?" one in Perkasie had ever asked me what I thought. I knew “Why don't you go to Russia if you don't like it here?" the audience would be filled with the fathers of kids I'd said John Sterner, who owned the drugstore. grown up with, people whose homes I'd been in and out "That's the only answer you've got?" I said. That's of, men who attended my father's church and played golf the best you can do?" with him. “My boy died in Vietnam!" Bob Gillman shouted. “All of us here desire peace," I began. “Some of us “Your father would be ashamed of you." have seen war first-hand. Others have lost loved ones to David Gillman had become a helicopter pilot. His it. We want no part of it. Ifwe sometimes appear belligerent, chopper had crashed and burned. What was sent back to we must believe it is only a necessary response to the Perkasie didn't fill a grocery bag, but Bob Gillman put it provocations of others. We are peacekeepers." in the ground and put a headstone over it. He believed his The audience stared at me. son had died for a reason. It had kept him going for twenty

9 0 Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET INaivi G eneration VoIume 4 NuMbcR 5-4 years. Without it, he would have to face his insatiable grief. He glared at me, his face red with whiskey and his I hate every fucking one of you eyes full of tears. who make dollars from our deaths. I looked at the other faces. Not a flicker of light in the I hate every fucking one of you room. for my friends' dying breaths. “I'm sorry aboutyour son,” I said. “My parents risked three sons in Vietnam. By the grace of God, they got all I hate every fucking one of you. three of us back. I’m sorry you weren’t so lucky. I don’t banker or corporation head. think my father's ashamed of me. Why don't you ask him I hate every fucking one of you yourself?" for so many, so young, and dead. A few years later my father died. During the eulogy. Rev. Tom DeWitt, who had been my father's assistant I hate every fucking one of you pastor, noted that my father had always kept on his desk with your pin-striped, dark blue suits. my first volume of poems, its spine facing anyone who I hate every fucking one of you entered the room. Its title is A Generation of Peace. A few for all those empty boots. years later, my mother died. I put the book in her casket. My mother and father are buried side by side at the top of Market Street, on the ridge overlooking the town. You can see the whole Branch Valley stretching away in three All The Stars Do Not Spangle directions. You can see the school where my mother taught, and the creek where I used to play, and the With the fervency of youth steeple of my father’s church. and the pumping vigor of early manhood we pledged allegiance, and never once questioned if it was due.

P o et r y By DAvid CoNNolly In classes, on teams, in gangs, in platoons, we were taught what we'd need to know Thoughts on a Monday Morning if ever honored to defend you.

Originally written after a memorial service fo r 59 troopers We left to battle a people from the Second Squadron o f the 11th Armored Cavalry of stone, earth, water, and war, Regiment who were killed in action or whodied as a result who were far, far too hardened o f wounds received when ambushed by an entrenched, to ever yield. numerically superior force while on an operation in the Michelin Rubber Plantations, near the town ofDau Tieng, The first of the war I saw in what was called . was an officer in a jeep, shooting gleefully Cold, despite my blanket. at a farmer in his field. Lonely, amongst my friends. Wondering, with the things I've done, can I ever make amends? 20 July 69 Sickened by this needless waste. On Ambush Stoic, to those around. Wondering, what will break me, Piercing the night, from the right the next fight, or death, or sound? the RTO whispered, “Brothers, an American is walking on the moon!" Missing, those who love me. Hoping, for the next month or so. We all looked up. then forward, Wondering, how will I ever fit in, into some poor papasan's with people who just don’t know? thousand year old rice paddy, pulverized by the planes Terrified, by the death grins. into round puddles of puppy shit. Afraid, I'll be one of the dead. Wondering, why did I ever think, Some dead serious, totally sane, it wouldn't be as bad as they said? nineteen year old boonie-rat said, “I don't see him out there.” Used, by the rich of my country. Duped, by those I looked up to. Wondering, how can I tell those, who blindly wave the red, white, and blue?

91 Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIume 4 INuivibcR 5-4

Our Fourth LT One of My Best Friends

When that LT got wasted, There was spit on the neck just about cut in half, of the offered canteen. we spoke of him, He was a black guy, had a toke for him. but I had eight empties. smilingly remembering So I drank. when he told the general, “Sir, I have come to consider Months later, my primary mission on an observation post, in Vietnam to be he engaged a probe. to get my own young ass Only I lived and those of my men to strip the fuck out of here, alive. his dumb, dead, brave, black ass It just happened of what we really needed. that this time the Army's mission The shame and mine, coincided. for what he never knew 1 felt, He had smartly snapped was heavier than his ruck. one beaut of a salute and spun on his heel. We thought when he faced us, No Lie, GI with his shiny, new Silver Star, the wiseass would be smiling. We had a deal, he and I, of no bullshit between us. If one of us got wounded, Christmas Standdown the other wouldn't lie. So when he got hit They brought us in for the truce and he asked me, and we got drunk, on our ass drunk. "How's my leg?" I looked him straight in the eye After shooting up the Christmas tree and told him, “It’s fine.” sent by my girl. It looked fine to me, and smoking a lot of Cambo dope, laying over there, we dipped the LT. looked as good as new. head first, into the pisser, No Lie. GI. blaming him, or rather, his uniform. because we were there, not home, opening presents. In His Father's Footsteps cuddling and copping a feel from our girl, under the tree. Having slapped a machete, then a rock, from his hand, We got a month's confinement each, 1 pushed the young boy for assaulting the person at gunpoint and the uniform of an officer, toward the other villagers, got called animals for what we did, away from the still form (but it was OK to kill Vietnamese) of his father. and spent Christmas together, the three of us, in Long Binh Jail. Mere words were all I left with which he could fight. LT, you were KIA in June, at twenty one, "Someday, GI. mebbe you die!” trying to save one of us from death. I’m sorry for what I did to you. The B-40 shrapnel You didn't deserve that. that weeks later But your uniform, for killing you tore into me, and so many others, for nothing, hit no harder. it deserved worse.

92 Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIume 4 NuiVlbcR J-4

Letters From My Mom Corporal Thach First Confirmed NVA Kill She wrote that the jungle looked just lovely, was It as pretty as in the pictures? I see you still; And my friends had such funny nicknames. your shining, black hair, And why were we all so thin and pale, your high cheekbones isn’t Vietnam hot and sunny? and bared teeth, She hoped I was eating right your glowing, searching eyes, and taking care of my teeth. testing each step And did we have to have so many guns? as if it were your last. Someone might get hurt. My cousin got into the Marine Reserves You flinched and his training was very, very hard. as the angry hornets And all her friends were asking her I let fly why no one smiled in the pictures 1 sent. snapped you up then let you drop, a jumble of arms and legs and black and white scarf. Reconciliation

Your last reflex for Nguyen Ngoc Hung, once an infantryman killed the man next to me in the People's Army o f Vietnam but it's your death I remember. hawser—a stout rope used to moor ships.

I stand, looking that way There's no pride, no regret, no way I'll forget over the water and let go the hawser of hate, your death until mine. as heavy as the dead, in hand or in memory. Anh Hung And across the pond (Elder Brother Hung) stands someone much like me who was once a PAVN Grunt weary of the weight of old hate. I told him that I was wounded in our war. He said that made us brothers, From each side for he also bore the mark of pain. we watch Kieu's ship, noting how her planks, I asked was the pain worth winning the war? mostly yellow. He only sees that too many, on both sides, have suffered, and still do. some blond, to tan, to ebony, fashioned by time, toil and tears, 1 told him we tired of the death for no gain. fit so cunningly. He only knew war, his whole life, and accepted it as the buffalo does the plow. And by and away sails the harried ship, Viet-Nam, I asked if he volunteered as I had done. able to take little notice He said he did. but would rather of those in her wake. have taught children to read and write, than to fight and die. Take my hand, Brother; we’ll keep each other afloat.

David Connolly, 237 LStreet # 1, South Boston, MA 02127 Sumimer-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VoIume 4 NuivibcR 5-4

Khe Sanh seemed like the place. Between twenty "H o m e Is WHere Y ou D iq It " i and forty thousand NVA surrounded five thousand (ObsERVATiONS ON LifE AT ThE Marines.6 Khe Sanh was in the mountainous area where North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and Laos came together. KH e S anN CoMbAT B ase) It was far from the heavily populated coastal plain and the South Vietnamese government was not particularly active. Peter Brush, 8 Morrison Ave., Plattsburgh, NY 12901 This would minimize coordination problems with the ARVN and allow the application of air and artillery assets with the least possible number of civilian casualties. Most important of all was the fact that the NVA seemed Men who received orders to Vietnam had certain willing to fight at Khe Sanh. expectations of the place, based on their general life In a sense both sides besieged each other. The experiences and their training. We expected to work Marines could only be supplied by air and could not have hard, to be bored, to experience excitement and danger. evacuated the base without sustaining unacceptable It was reasonable to anticipate the tropical climate, casualties. The NVA were trapped by their military and periods of thirst and dreary food, being dirty and tired political goals (whatever they might have been) and by the and other aspects of a year-long camping trip. Everyone greatest application o f air power in history. who participated in the siege of Khe Sanh likely had these Even as late as December, 1967, Khe Sanh was expectations. I don't think these Marines expected that considered relatively good duty, as those things went in their problems would include dealing with rats, yet Viet Nam. I requested transfer there from a nearby fire virtually everyone who wrote about Khe Sanh included base because Khe Sanh's had a reputation for great descriptions of them. physical beauty, few rocket and mortar attacks and In 1962, the Special Forces were the first at Khe relatively comfortable living conditions. Aesthetically, Sanh, arriving by truck. Weapons specialist Frank Fowler Khe Sanh had it all —mountains, valleys, streams, triple made an observation about the place that would be canopy jungle in several shades of green, elephants and repeated by others when he mentioned the rats. Noting tigers. The local population were mostly tribal Bru the numbers present, he said. Montagnards rather than ethnic Vietnamese. This good duty was more apparent than real, and at One time we went into the village and bought about 5:00 a.m. on the morning of 21 January, 1968, a some metal rat traps because it was so bad. We reconnaissance team radioed that a flight of rockets had were using mosquito nets on our bunks to keep been launched from a nearby hill and would land on the the rats off. 1 remember one night there was a big combat base. This initial attack was small by later metal rat trap with teeth on it. And 1 remember standards, consisting of about one hundred 82 mm the first rat we got. When [the trap] snapped it mortar shells and sixty 122 mm rockets.7 But fifteen woke me up. And then the rat started dragging minutes after the attack began one rocket landed in the the thing off!2 midst of the main ammunition storage area, with devastating results. Fowler was not to be envied his task of separating his This dump contained eleven thousand units of live rat from the trap. A cornered rat will fight like a ordnance that immediately began burning.8 Red-hot “cornered rat,” and will attack its attacker.3 artillery and recoilless rifle rounds were hurled into The Marines joined up with the Special Forces and nearby trenches. CS tear gas was ignited and filled the their rats in 1966. Colonel Tom Horne presided over the entire area with gas as thick as fog. About 10:00 a.m. the transformation of the Army position into the Marine fire set off a large quantity of C-4 plastic explosive and Corps Khe Sanh Combat Base. He recalled, “My memory other explosives. At the airstrip all the navigational aids of that place is waking up with fifteen or twenty rats on were destroyed, several helicopters were damaged or the bed with me!"3 In 1967, when the buildup of forces on destroyed, living quarters for the Marine air group were both sides began in earnest, the Roman Catholic chaplain destroyed, the control tower was rendered inoperative, of 3/26 ran into the furry Khe Sanh Welcome Wagon on and the runway was cratered. All this on the first day of his first night when a rat lost its footing on the dirt ledge incoming rocket, artillery, and mortar attacks that would of his bunker, fell on his chest, and bounced to the floor continue for the next 76 days. with a squeal.4 The mess halls were immediately secured. In the Initially the US strategy for winning the war in atmosphere of fiying metal it would not do for two Vietnam was merely one of attrition. In 1967, critics hundred Marines to congregate in one place. C-rations pointed out that attrition was an indication that the US were issued and the men took their meals in their was losing the initiative in Vietnam, and not a strategy in . The rat population began to take off and Khe itself. Consequently, when the NVA began moving large Sanh took on the look of “a shanty slum on the outskirts numbers of troops into I Corps in the summer of 1967, of Manila.-9 Continuous aerial bombardment, shelling General Westmoreland made plans to engage them in and digging and bulldozing of positions filled the air with large numbers, to apply massive firepower in a decisive red dust. Smoke filled the air, smoke from incoming, from engagement, to allow the U.S. to finally bask in the warm diesel generators, from burning latrines, from burning light at the end of the tunnel. ordnance, from trash fires. Water was restricted and few were able to bathe regularly. The monsoon rain served to

9 4 Summcr-FaII, 1992 ViET INaim G eneration VoIume 4 NuMbtR 5-4

poisoned; local Bru children who helped fill drive the rats inside the bunkers, where they “ran across sandbags and cleaned out the garbage dumps the dirt floors, gnawing at shelves and boots and fingers, collected the rats, broke their legs, and put them ehittering in fear when the big guns fired and sometimes in their pockets to take home. Later they would scratching faces as they raced across sleeping Marines in be eaten.13 the dark bunkers."10 Time magazine reported that the Eventually rat traps became available and were issued to each unit. My battery was allocated seven traps, rats became frantic under fire. When incoming which were baited with C-ration cheese or peanut butter. starts the rats race for the bunkers and wildly Morning after morning each trap yielded its victim, run up to the ceilings made of runway matting always seven full traps. After a few weeks we quit bothering and logs. One sergeant killed thirty-four rats, with the traps, feeling that no progress was being made. establishing a base record.11 The NVA constructed trenches ever closer to the perimeter of Khe Sanh, eventually putting them in a Ernest Spencer described the rats at Khe Sanh in position to snipe at the garbage detail carrying trash to Welcome to Vietnam, Macho Man: the dump. This resulted in cessation of the garbage detail. Trash began to pile up throughout the base, There were always rats at Khe Sanh. Not your spreading food for the rats everywhere. The rat problem stereotypical Asian variety of chopsticks-using in the bunkers got worse. At first the rats seemed content rat. Khe Sanh rats are snarling suckers with big to remain beneath the pallets. With time they became heads. Having evolved in a jungle environment, bolder and ventured around the bunker whenever the those rats are capable of fighting anything. lights were put out. Finally we were forced to leave the The rats began exerting themselves several lights on continually in an attempt to keep the rats off our breeding cycles into the siege. A rat jumps on my cots and stretchers. chest one night. On my back on my cot, I slap at Life at Khe Sanh settled into a routine. One night in him with my left hand while I tty to shield my face March my roommate and 1 were lying in our small with my right. He is grinning at me, I swear. bunker, reading by candle light. About 10:00 p.m. Corporal Rats love the walls. Since the walls Hawker put the candle out and settled into a casualty bag are several layers thick, the rats have a lot of on top of his cot. Immediately he heard noises in front of room for their quarters. You can hear them in him at ground level. Slowly, stealthily. Hawker grabbed there screaming, eating, fucking, and kicking a flashlight in one hand and an assault knife in the other. each others' asses. Rats are nasty—they are While he was getting into position to attack, the rat had always fighting. silently climbed onto the cot, inches from Hawker’s face. Rats behave more logically during the siege When the light snapped on. Hawker slashed empty air thn we do. They let their feelings out. You can and the startled rat ran across his face. Terrified, Hawker hear them squeaking and going berserk during a zipped the casualty bag up completely, then began barrage. Us macho men just sit there quietly and take it.12 thrashing to get back out, afraid he had trapped the rat inside the bag. The rat escaped and I chuckled myself to sleep. The floors of our bunkers were constructed of wooden As the NVA battered the base supply problems pallets over dirt, and invariably food fell between the pallet slats, providing feed for the rats. Trash cans were became evident. Three C-ration meals per day were emptied into drums placed in each unit area, to be reduced to two. With only twelve different meals to chose collected and hauled to the base dump. As the supply of from, meal time turned from a pleasant break in the daily food at the dump increased so too did the rat population, routine intojustanotherordeal. Many of us quit bothering to heat our rations, concluding that the grease from roast which then moved back into the base area. Initially there were only mouse traps at Khe Sanh, beef and potatoes didn't taste worse than the gravy It would become if heated, only different. As stomachs but they served more to irritate than kill the rats. Rat shrank with the reduced rations it took more will power traps were requisitioned from supply and given a priority than many could muster to consume even two meals per after ammunition, C-rations, mail, and personnel. day. Uneaten rations went into the trash, further As the incoming continued the men were restricted increasing the rat population. to their underground quarters unless they had reason to NVA incoming was not steady at Khe Sanh; some be above ground. At night the rats would climb into trash days saw less than two hundred rounds fired at the base cans to eat scraps from the C-rations. With smooth metal while the daily record was 1,307.14 The humid sides these containers served as rat traps of sorts and in environment was corrosive to ammunition, and regularly the morning the Marines would bludgeon them to death with tent poles, then throw them back in the trash. directives were received to turn in old small arms ammo for replacement with fresh stock. As the old bullets would Ray Stubbe notes in Valley o f Decision: be dumped at sea, some Marines loaded their M-16 magazines exclusively with tracers, venturing down to Officially, base policy was to drown rats after the trash dump to shoot rats. In the gloom of the monsoon killing them to kill the fleas which were infected it looked like laser beams emitting from the rifle barrels with plague virus. The animals couldn't be as the Marines honed their marksmanship skills.

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One Recon Marine, David Doehrman, liberated the rats at Khe Sanh were like the rain and the shrapnel— several steaks from a locked freezer in the mess hall. He always irritating, always present, always threatening. and his friends cooked them on camp stoves, gorging But Westmoreland's plan for a Dien Bien Phu in themselves, then settled down to sleep in their bunks. reverse never happened. Various NVA regimental-sized Doehrman's hand “dangled over the metal tray containing attempts to mass for an attack on the base were broken the remaining steaks, and he was bitten by a rat during up by artillery and aerial bombardment. Battalion and the night." This incident caused Doehrman to be placed company-sized probes against the Marines’ perimeter on medical hold to receive a series of rabies shots.15 were beaten off. By March 9, Saigon reported that NVA Doehrman's incident perhaps explains the origin of strength around Khe Sanh had been reduced to 6,000 to a stoiy that circulated at Khe Sanh, which claimed that 8,000 men.21 On April 9, for the first time in weeks, not some Marines were putting peanut butter on their toes one enemy shell crashed into the combat base.22 and sticking their feet between the pallets, hoping to get The NVA departed from Khe Sanh; by April 15 the bit. The rationale being a rat bite would cause one to be U.S. Command announced that the operation for the evacuated from the base to receive shots for rabies. relief of the base had been concluded and all objectives Knives, traps, and tent poles weren’t the only weapons had been secured. The siege was over. Westmoreland the Marines used against rats. Stubbe relates an incident claimed the NVA lost between 10,000 and 15,000 men when one gunnery sergeant became so incensed at a rat and hailed the confrontation as a great US victory.23 that kept paying him a visit that “one night he pulled out Army units entered the base, the first to arrive by his .45-caliber pistol and shot the thing as it scurried land in months. They stared at us in disbelief; some of the above a poncho the gunny had hung across the ceiling. Marines wore beards, all needed haircuts, all were He killed the rat, but the hole in the poncho became a exhausted. Our clothes were filthy and we were drain for rainwater...."16 unwashed. The 1st Cavalry had the attitude that they One night, just as I was about to put out my lantern, had “relieved" us, that they had “broken" the NVA siege. I noticed a cat-sized rat nonchalantly wandering into my We largely ignored them. bunker, sniffing the ground. Amazed at the boldness of The largest convoy I have ever seen in Vietnam this rodent I grabbed the only weapon I could find close formed up and we drove to Camp Carroll, the nearby by. Cocking my arm, the 1 launched a at the firebase from which 1 had been sent to Khe Sanh five rat, hoping to knock him out of the bunker. Instead, the months previously. Khe Sanh was no longer a Garden of panicked rat ran right toward me, only turning when he Eden. The aerial bombardment had turned the countryside realized that safety lay in exactly opposite direction. into moonscape, everything had been destroyed. Not a Always the rats were big. Gustav Hasford describes tree was left standing. There were no shades of green. them in The Phantom Blooper. NVA General Vo Nguyen Giap claimed that Khe Sanh was never very important to the NVA. only serving as a Every twenty meters I stoop down and tug at the feint to draw US forces away from the populated areas with det cord crimps to see if the wire during Tet. Giap considered Khe Sanh an NVA victory.24 has been cut. The tugging scares up bunker rats In June, 1968, it was announced that Khe Sanh was big enough to stand flat-footed and butt-fuck a being abandoned. The Marines proceeded to dismantle six-by.17 the base, slashing sandbags, blowing up their fortified positions, filling in trenchlines with bulldozers, hauling If true, Hasford would be describing a serious rat away everything of possible use to the enemy. The last problem. But rats cannot take on a two-and-one-half ton Marines left on July 6.25 truck, are not as large as cats, and do not have large In their leaving, both sides turned the base over to heads. The average cat weighs eleven pounds, while even the rats, whose population likely expanded still further a large Norway rat weighs less than two pounds.18 now that the monsoon had ended, air and artillery strikes How many rats were there at Khe Sanh? Even had ceased, and there was no human population to though the Marines never attempted a census, estimates harass them. The rats were free to police the remaining using certain assumptions can be made. ration scraps within the base and the huge quantity of The lesser bandicoot (Bandicola bengalensis) is one body parts that must have lain without. And when this species of rat common to southern Asia. Each female can food supply was consumed they too would depart Khe produce a litter per month, with seven pups per litter, for Sanh. a daily rate of increase of over eleven percent.19 The rats at Khe Sanh may or may not have been N o t e s reproducing at their biological maximum (i.e.. rats were 1 A homemade sign with these words on it was attached being killed by Marines, but it is also likely they were also to a bunker at Khe Sanh during the siege. being driven into the base from without by aerial 2 John Prados and Ray W. Stubbe, Valley of Decision: bombardment). There are approximately as many rats in The S i e g e o f Khe Sanh (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.), the world as people, unevenly distributed.20 If the rat 1991: 15. population equaled the human population at Khe Sanh, 3 Thomas Y. Canby, “The Rat: Lapdog of the Devil," and assuming the above optimum rate of increase, National Geographic (July, 1977): 87. theoretically there could have been one hundred thousand 4 Prados and Stubbe, loc. cit.: 54-55. rats by day 27 of the siege, one-half million rats on day 43, 5 148. and over one million by day 50. Whatever their number.

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6 Robert Pisor, The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Ironically, exactly twelve hours after LaPorte’s immolation Sanh (New York: Ballantine Books), 1982): 10. gives a the lights went out in Manhattan in the greatest power figure of 20,000 NVA. , Dispatches (New failure in the history of the . Though LaPorte’s York: Avon Books): 113, mentions 40,000 NVA. The incident had been overshadowed by the events which figure of 5,000 Marines is from Pisor, ibid.: 9. took place later on in the day, the two events symbolized 7 Prados, loc. cit.: 251. a greater darkness quickly befalling the nation—American 8 Ibid.:. 255. military involvement in Viet Nam. 9 Pisor, loc. cit.:. 181. It is now seventeen years since the last U.S. combat 10 Ibid.: 181. troops departed Viet Nam. No single event in the nation’s 11 Time. February 16, 1968: 38. history has had such a dramatic impact. For well over ten 12 Ernest Spencer, Welcome to Vietnam, Macho Man years the American public was tom between allegiance to (Corps Press) 1987: 110. the flag and opposition to the war. Families were bitterly 13 Prados, loc. cit.: 7. divided in debating the virtues of the war. In particular, 14 Captain Moyers S. Shore II, USMC, The Battle fo r Khe fathers, many of them veterans, implored their sons to Sanh (Washington, D. C„ Headquarters, U. S. Marine respect the Constitution and what it stood for. Sons, Corps) 1969: 121-122. reluctant to be drafted to fight in war, questioned why: 15 Prados, loc. cit.: 235. some went so far as to encourage their fathers to read 16 Ibid.: 6. Thomas Hardy's prophetic poem, "The Man He Killed." 17 Gustav Hasford. The Phantom Blooper (New York: Bantam Books), 1990: 12. “Had he and I but met 18 Canby, loc. cit: 87. By some old ancient in, 19 Ibid.: 68. We should have sat us down to wet 20 “The Rat Explosion," Atlas. September, 1978: 58 Right many a nipperkin! 21 Pisor, loc. cit.: 211. 22 Ibid. “But ranged as infantry. 23 Ibid.: 237. And staring face to face, 24 Oriana Fallaci. Nothing and So Be It (Garden City, I shot at him as he at me, N.Y: Doubleday & Co.) 1972: 85-86. quoted in Pisor, loc. And killed him in his place cit: 241. 25 Prados, loc. cit.: 448. “I shot him dead because— Because he was my foe, Just so: my foe of course he was: That's clear enough: although D oves iN a H Aw k's N est: V iet Naim ANd t Ne "Yes: quaint and curious war is! A iMERicAN P eace M o vem en t, 1965-75 You shoot a fellow down You'd treat, if met where any bar is Or help to half-a-.”2 By Charles Howlett, 93 Gladstone Avenue. West Islip. NY. 11795 Heated passions and angry disagreement ran deep. During the period when U.S. military involvement in Viet Nam and the opposition were both mounting, a great At 5:20am on November 9, 1965, a young member of the many things were happeningat once in the United States: Catholic Worker group. Roger LaPorte, sat on the landing sharp and sudden changes between the races; the passage of the Swords into Ploughshares staircases opposite the of progressive legislation that had been pending since the United Nations building. Shivering slightly in the brisk 1930s, followed by a frustrating failure to put it into effect autumn dawn, LaPorte poured gasoline from a two- and make it work: a new readiness to question the most gallon can over himself and ignited it. He died thirty accepted institutions and principles: a spontaneous hours later at Bellevue Hospital. Tom Cornell, a leading movement among the young to change society, then to peace activist of the group, wrote of his death: reject it: a heightening of passions on all sides to the point where charges of treason and of genocide were not only Roger was conscious and lucid for hours. He was casually made but widely believed: a growing atmosphere not in pain: his nerve endings had been burned of violence culminating in urban riots: street battles off. He spoke to the police and the ambulance between police and protestors: the murders of Martin attendants, saying, "I am a Catholic Worker. I am Luther King. Jr. and Robert Kennedy: and, finally, distrust anti-war. all wars. 1 did this as a religious action... of government due to the Watergate scandal. All of these all the hatred in the world... I picked this hour so things played a part in public attitudes toward the war no one could stop me." He spoke to the doctors and, in varying degrees, were even consequences of the and to several priests and to a nun. He made his war. A history of that period must be a history of the last confession, and received the anointing of the passions it aroused and the manner in which they finally sick and dying.1 forced a deeply reluctant nation to recognize the fact of

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the war, to face the doubts it had raised, and finally to Left groups like the Trotskyists took a hard revolutionary reject it.3 position. To prove its commitment, the New Left felt itself The activities of those millions who expressed public forced to do the same. One long-time “unrepentant opposition to Washington's involvement in the U.S.- radical," the late Sidney Lens had this observation: “The Indochinese War are well worth remembering, for they Trotskyists were by no means the dominant force... but succeeded through their efforts in affecting both the they were vocal, disciplined, and they had outmaneuvered conduct of U.S. war policies and the national self-image the communists and pacifists to assert a dominant itself. There is no need to doubt the abiding belief held by position.... The Trotskyists boasted a younger and more peace-seekers in the 1960s that victory on Washington’s vigorous membership, and their contribution to the terms in Viet Nam would be worse for the U.S. and world movement was serious and sizable."8 peace than any foreseeable alternative. “Victory in a war Yet, despite such tactical and philosophical diversity, such as the United States is waging in Vietnam would the antiwar movement survived. What enabled the The Nation demean our country more than defeat." movement to present an image of unanimity and asserted in 1965. “That is the crux of the opposition."4 consensus on the surface while below confusion and What about those millions who protested? Is it not disagreement reigned supreme? The answer lies in the time to examine objectively and comprehensively the forces of coalitions formed throughout the years of antiwar impact of antiwar actions during the Viet Nam conflict? protest. In fact, the most significant characteristic of the One point must be made clear from the start, however. antiwar movement was its ability to coalesce and form The opponents of the war found it always difficult, and new coalitions when confronted with varying situations. often impossible, to agree on the best way of opposing it. Unlike any previous peace movement in United States One reason for this dissension within dissension was history, opposition to the Viet Nam war was based on a that the war was actually a secondary issue to many of tenuous alliance between peace liberals critical of the the organizations most active in trying to end it. The immorality of Lyndon Johnson’s cold war policies and dozen or so minor socialist and revolutionary groups in radical pacifists and leftists who perceived a connection the United States made no secret of their primary interest between the Indochina war and domestic injustice and in bringing down capitalism. The civil rights organizations racial poverty. were more concerned with injustice at home than war Several distinguishing features differentiated this abroad. “I am not looked upon as an equal citizen in peace movement from previous ones. First, forcible everyday life," said a black activist named John Otis resistance represented the movement's loss of faith in the Dumrall in December, 1966. “Why am I looked upon as electoral wisdom of the United Slates public. It also an equal citizen when it comes time for me to report for illustrated the growing radicalization of the movement. induction?... I would feel just like the KKK over there. Attempts to disrupt the war machinery were sometimes Denying those people freedom of choice, just like black accompanied by violence. The surprising feature of this people are denied freedom of choice in the U.S."5 Student antiwar movement was not the erratic actions of a few, groups were worried about the draft, and were especially but that after years of frustration, the movement was still prone to bruising ideological struggles on points of purely vital. Few American mass movements of such intensity theoretical interest. Traditional peace organizations like have had such a history. SANE (Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy) and the Second, the movement was unique in the history of Committee for Nonviolent Action were obsessed with American antiwar groups in the number of its activists. being “responsible," which generally meant trying to While comparable numbers of United States citizens come up with an alternative Viet Nam policy which might opposed the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and World conceivably be accepted by those in power.6 From time War I, never before were hundreds of thousands willing to time all those groups could be coaxed into uneasy and to take to the streets so urgently. Compared to the decade temporary agreement on a single slogan or course of that preceded it, the 1960s and early 1970s were years of action, but most of the time they were pulling in their own political turmoil and the antiwar movement was at the directions for their own reasons. center along with the civil rights protests. The inevitable struggles over strategy and purpose Third, the movement was also distinguished by its were never fully resolved. Despite uneasy and temporary comprehensive nature. The protestors were as alliances, antiwar factions attacked each other more heterogeneous as American society. Small town fiercely than they attacked the war itself. There remained demonstrations were likely to include housewives, throughout the war’s duration a contest between the New business executives, doctors, dentists, ministers, and Left and the Old Left for control of the antiwar movement. workers. Demonstrations in large cities added students, The Old Left, led principally by the Trotskyists, wanted to college professors, bohemians, clergy, teachers, veterans build a mass movement around the single issue of the in uniform, and show-business celebrities. A number of war, while the Students for a Democratic Society, and the retired generals spoke against the war as did even a New Left in general, favored an attempt to create a broad handful of United Stales senators. The opponents of the radical movement which would emphasize other issues war of 1812, on the contrary, were geographically centered along with the war.7 I n the end it would be the Trotskyists almost entirely in New England: Mexican War opponents who proved to be the most tireless opponents of the war. derived from abolitionist and Free Soil movements; and Their ideological rigor set the terms of debate within the the opponents of were chiefly from certain movement, and one reason the SDS, for instance, specific ethnic and politically radical groups.9 eventually declared itself Marxist-Leninist was that Old

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Finally, a point worth reiterating, while antiwar Mobilize the Conscience of America," the action attracted groups were traditionally suspicious of one another, they an estimated crowd of35,000 “moderate and respectable" cooperated closely in this cause. At the movement's war protestors. SANE-approved signs dominated the grassroots, antiwar groups from pacifists to liberals picket lines and read: “Stop the Bombings," “Respect viewed collaboration with American communists as far 1954 Geneva Accords," “War Erodes the Great Society," less heinous than the actions of their government and the and "Self-Determination—Vietnam for the Vietnamese." indolence of the American people. Pacifists and political In this way it strove to moderate both the demonstration's moderates saw the presence of racial activists or anarchists tone and to preserve its general atmosphere of dignity in their ranks as a tactical handicap but regarded the and restraint.13 cause of ending the war as worth the association. This period also witnessed vocal opposition to the Opposition to the war was tragically dramatized on war by some notable Americans. I.F. Stone, the respected March 16. 1965, shortly after President Johnson journalist, called for an immediate withdrawal. Senator announced the bombing of North Viet Nam and major (D-Alaska), political theorist Hans troop increases. That day 82-year-old Alice Herz, a Morgenthau, George F. Kennan, father of the United survivor of the Nazi terror, set herself on fire in . States containment policy, pediatrician Benjamin Spock, She lingered in the hospital for ten days before dying. and retired Lt. General James Gavin either called for a Eight months later, two other self-immolations occurred— ceasefire and negotiated settlement or urged the Johnson Quaker set himself afire before the Administration to limit the United States military role in Pentagon and his two-year-old daughter on November Viet Nam and turn the war over the the Vietnamese. What second, and Roger LaPorte followed him seven days later. was so repulsive to these critics was the indiscriminate The actions of the self-immolators prompted the employment of bombings which killed innocent civilians distinguished peace leader A.J. Muste to comment as well as the view of those in power that government has sarcastically: “But ours is a society composed of people a right to deceive its citizens. who somehow feel that... the deaths of hundreds, Their respectable protest coincided with the antiwar thousands, millionsinwaris... somehow normal, human, “teach-ins" that swept through the nation's colleges and civilized.... Even more, this is a society in which people universities. Having supported Johnson in 1964 as the contemplate, for the most part calmly, the self-immolation “peace candidate," many faculty members and students of the whole of mankind in a nuclear holocaust."10 felt betrayed as he adopted the Viet Nam war policies of The self-immolations. Muste intoned, would have his opponent, Barry Goldwater. On March 24th an all- been open to criticism if they had occurred in a society night teach-in at the University of Michigan attracted which valued human life. But in 1965 more than just 3,000 participants. It touched off a series of teach-ins people were burning. “Great Society" or not, black anger across the United States during the remainder of the against both racial injustice at home and war abroad year. “We are using our power to thwart and abort an burst into the open. Buildings and stores were indigenous social and political revolution," charged systematically destroyed as millions of Americans Professor William Appleman Williams at the University of perceived a connection between Washington’s war in Wisconsin. Speaking at the University of Oregon, Senator Indochina and its failure to overcome poverty and social Wayne Morse predicted: “Twelve months from tonight injustice at home. In August 1965, the nation watched in there will be hundreds of thousands of American boys horror as the black Watts community of Los Angeles fighting in Southeast Asia—and tens of thousands of destroyed millions of dollars worth of property. Quickly, them will be coming home in coffins." At the University of civil rights leader Robert Parris (Moses), and pacifists Michigan, Arthur Waskow of the Institute for Policy David Dellinger and Staughton Lynd organized the Studies, condemning militarism and conscription, cited Assembly of Unrepresented People in an effort to fuse Jefferson on slavery: “I tremble for my country when I together the civil rights and peace movements.11 A reflect that God is Just." Artists, writers, and intellectuals symbiotic relationship was thus formed which emphasized were in the forefront of the protest. social injustice as an outgrowth of war. This union led to The student antiwar movement that formed around the creation of the National Coordinating Committee to the Viet Nam war, moreover, displayed some significant End the War in Vietnam: its headquarters was located in departures from previous antiwar student activism. It Madison, Wisconsin. The NCCEWVassisted local antiwar was prompted by neither internationalist nor pacifist groups involving close to 100,000 people in demonstrating sentiments, although its critique of American society against the war during the October 15-16 “International contained many oftheir combined objectives. Forinstance, Days of Protest"—less than a month before the immolations the movement that emerged was not as dependent on of Morrison and LaPorte. Some of the rallies consisted of “parent groups" such as the Communist or Socialist draft card burning, now a federal felony due to recent Parties or the Fellowship of Reconciliation as were earlier congressional legislation.12 movements like those of the thirties. A new group of By the time of Morrison's and LaPorte's deaths, full- young antiwar “antiheroes" led the movement as part of scale opposition to the war was well underway. On the incipient revolt against the older generation. The war November 27 SANE, recharged by the war, sponsored a became a vehicle for criticizing the society their parents march on Washington for peace in Viet Nam. Two new had built. Noticeably, the 1960s marked the era of groups, the pacifist Catholic Peace Fellowship and the “obstructive demonstration" and a new tactical approach interfaith Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, of'violence forviolence" to counter warmaking attempts. joined SANE's antiwar march. Publicized as “A Call to Finally, unlike previous wars, the Viet Nam war did not

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press conference included 's reading of a weaken student protest, but rather invigorated it. The tax resistance poem, and Pete Seeger's musical plea for antiwar movement among students in the 1960s had peace. more significant political impact than any of the earlier One interesting tactic of tax resistance was for an student movements.15 individual to claim enough dependents on his or her form The student antiwar movement which emerged in to prevent an employer from withholding any Income 1965 represented a marked departure from the taxes. Unfortunately, this tactic brought particularly respectability of passive nonresistance. The idea that strong counteraction by the government and a number of students might become the “radical agency of change" people were prosecuted and imprisoned, including a 64- characterized their new approach to society's problems. year-old grandmother named Martha Tranquilli. Violent acts in opposition to the United States war The popular singer Joan Baez symbolized her protest machine were regularly advocated by student leaders. by establishing a small school in California's Carmel Ironically, though opposed to war in principle, their Valley, the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence.18 This violent tactics proved upsetting to mainstream U.S. unconventional school performed ballet exercises to peace groups seeking military disengagement. Traditional Beatles records, discussed the works of Gandhi, Thoreau, pacifist concerns—a commitment to principled and Marshall McLuhan, and conducted periods of total nonviolence for meaningful social change and a silence “for clearing your mind of personal hangups." condemnation of all wars and violence as destroyers of While noteworthy from a physical and cerebral point of physical and spiritual life—were subsumed by the radical view, the nonconformity of Baez’s school tended to attract students' search for a common course upon which to numbers of young people identified as “hippies." build a mass movement on behalf of social reform. One of the most striking cultural characteristics of The strategy of building coalitions against the war the antiwar protests was the number of hippies, schooled continued early in 1966. In Februaiy the Fifth Avenue in matters of drugs, sex, and “natural" lifestyle, who were Peace Parade Committee, organized by Muste, and the attracted to the peace cause. Thus during the hardening NCCEWV in New York brought out 5,000 pickets to years of the sixties, many children had no respect for the oppose the presentation of a Freedom House Award to parents' skills or wisdom and did not need their money. Lyndon Johnson. The following month between 20,000 Generational conflict was beginning to replace social and 25.000 marchers came together at its call to participate conflict as the critically divisive social issue. On one side in another international protest action under the auspices stood a formidable youth culture which drew its strength of the National Committee. Led by a sizeable contingent from its own numbers. Like David Reisman's “other of disillusioned American war veterans and Afro- directed" types, this generation made their peers their Americans against the war, parade participants were a ultimate authority. racially and politically mixed lot. At a rally in Central Park Parents were devastated. They had seen enough Mall, Muste, Viet Nam war veteran Donald Duncan, and human waste during the depression—but at least they writer Norman Mailer attacked Johnson’s war. They were could understand that tragedy. But how had they failed also harassed by hecklers and egg-throwers, of course.16 their own children? Was it, as some psychologists suggest, A month later, under CNVA sponsorship, Muste, a function of the modern division of labor? Absence of the veteran activists Barbara Deming, Brad Lytlle, and Karl working father from the home was said to have left Meyer, outspoken antiwar scientists William Davidson, unresolved Oedipal conflict which was being transferred and peace-movement novice Sheriy Thurber, flew to to society and, later, to the government. Or, the parents Saigon to show the Vietnamese that some Americans wondered, were they more directly to blame? , opposed the war. The Americans held cordial meetings the noted Harvard child psychologist, has said that one with the underground South Vietnamese peace movement, generation revives the repressions of the generation but were harassed by Vietnamese youth at public before it. Had the shackles of the Depression and war meetings. The peace contingent believed the harassment deprived the parents of a necessary adolescent rebellion had been ordered by the South Vietnamese government, which only now was finding its outlet in their children? with the approval of the United States. Thus they returned Whether it was a division of labor producing an home to eliminate the chance of further Oedipal reaction based on generational repression or not, misunderstandings.17 one thing was obvious: the sixties youth culture was Tax resistance also became a popular tool to oppose determined to be seen and heard. By 1966 their the war. In 1966, the federal telephone tax was raised, appearance could not be ignored. and in a rare moment of candor, the federal government Representing the country’s more recent bohemian admitted that the additional money would be used to help subculture, the hippies shocked the nation's somewhat subsidize the war. Peacemakers, War Resisters League, dour population with their dirty dungarees, long hair, CNVA, and other peace groups urged nonpayment of this less than acceptable vocabulary, use of mind-altering tax. The IRS's discomfort wilh the burgeoning movement drugs, liberated sexual mores, and “acid" rock music. grew, and as the government's reprisals became more They argued for simplicity, communal life and peace. frequent, the need for legal information within the tax More often than not they would wear beads and raise resistance community became manifest. In 1969 War their fingers in a V-shape and simply say—"Peace." Tax Resistance was formed. Under the leadership of Bob Though they did add color to the peace movement, and in and Angie Calvert, it devoted itself to all the aspects and the process shake-up middle class America, their disdain ramifications of conscientious tax refusal. WTR's first for discipline and organization did not sit well with

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dedicated peace activists. Their simplicity in matters of corporations can claim as their property the people and political action rendered them ineffective participants in resources of Vietnam." Samos relied on a comparison to the prolonged antiwar struggle. Historian David Farber the United States War for Independence. Though has presented some interesting sociological observations historically weak in terms of insight and background, in an article he wrote, "The Counterculture and the Anti- Samos maintained that "We are telling them, we are War Movement," that appears in the recently published instructing them by force... to live the way we want them book. . to live.... I believe the war to be immoral, unjust, and The emergence of pro-peace flower children coincided illegal.”20 with the civil rights movement's opposition to the war. By Despite the vigorous efforts of the Committee to halt 1966, the peace and civil rights movements had developed their prosecutions, all three were tried and convicted: on a mutually satisfying approach to both the war and racial September 9, Johnson and Samos were given maximum injustice. The war itself caused the civil rights movement sentences of five years at Leavenworth and Mora a three to shift from public accommodation to acquisition of the year sentence. All of the men were given dishonorable twin levers of power in American society: the vote and the discharges and forfeitures of their pay.21 job. During the war, despite the presence of black By 1967 antiwar sentiment in the United States was revolutionists, the organized movement capitalized on at fever pitch. Muste, German pastor Martin NiemOller war protests to accentuate their dilemma through the (aged 75), Anglican Bishop Ambrose Reeves (age 67), and positive employment of nonviolent techniques. Rabbi Abraham Feinberg (age 67 and serving a Nonviolence became a “tactic" and a “way of life" in the congregation in ) spent ten days in North Viet modern civil rights struggle. Such a position arose because Nam (January 9-19). In outright contradiction to these activists were outnumbered and outgunned and statements from Washington denying American air attacks because their refusal to retaliate when attacked won on the areas around Hanoi, Muste wrote from that city to them necessary sympathizers. In terms of political the CNVA that no more than three or four blocks from his strategy, civil rights nonviolent action ultimately became hotel in the center of town, there were civilian nonviolent revolution. neighborhoods reduced to rubble. Based on what they In January 1966, therefore, leaders of the Student were seeing, Muste directed Americans back home to Nonviolent Coordinating Committee declared their support convey a message to Washington: “For God's sake stop for draft resisters and attacked President Johnson for lying!... Let us stop this bombing practice or else say violating international law overseas while neglecting to honestly to our government, to the world and to ourselves, enforce civil rights ordinances at home. In June, Stokely 'We are trying to bomb hell out of the Vietnamese people’." Carmichael, the new leader of SNCC, led civil rights On the heels of Muste’s trip to Hanoi, furthermore, a demonstrators in the streets of Atlanta, encouraging group of trade unionists organized the National Labor black youths to refuse military induction. Most Leadership Assembly for Peace, hoping to convince importantly, Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights workers in defense plants of the war’s immorality: the spiritual leader and 1964 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, paycheck, however, was more gratifying personally than accepted the job of co-chair of CALCAV and proceeded to individual acts of conscience. By the summer heavyweight dispute the war policy of the Johnson White House.19 boxing champion Muhammed Ali was sentenced to five Opposition to the war was also dramatically years in jail and a $10,00 fine for refusing induction in a demonstrated by “The . "James Johnson, white man's war. During the same period. Army surgeon a black American, Dennis Mora, a Puerto Rican, and Captain Howard Levy made public his refusal to train David Samos of Lithuanian-Italian parentage announced combat first aid teams for action in Viet Nam. The to a stunned military that they would refuse their orders respected Harvard liberal economist and former to report to Viet Nam. On June 30th, these three GIs ambassador to India in the Kennedy Administration, arranged a press conference in New York, aided by the John Kenneth Galbraith, published a little pamphlet Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee, SNCC and CORE. which bluntly argued that “it is a reasonable, indeed an Having made their announcement public, the draftees inescapable, assumption that we are in conflict not alone then pleaded with the peace movement to reach out to the with the communists but with a strong sense ofVietnamese other “trapped" and “helpless” enlisted men. The peace nationalism. If so, a further and massive conclusion movement responded. Muste and Staughton Lynd were follows. It is that we are in a war that we cannot win and, co-chairs of The Fort Hood Three Defense Committee. even more important, one we should not wish to win."22 Though the three were not pacifists, their opposition to Equally devastating to the militaiy effort was the rate the war led peace leaders to rally to their side. of conscientious objection—four times higher than World Pacifist support for their defense was due War II—while levels of draft evasion, violations, exile to considerably to the three men's personal views. Johnson Canada or into the domestic underground reached record saw a direct relationship between the peace movement heights. Though many more boys volunteered for military and the civil rights movement. “The South Vietnamese service or accepted the draft without protest, are fighting for representation, like we ourselves. The unprecedented personal antiwar decisions became more South Vietnamese just want a voice in the government, and more commonplace. A University of Rochester nothing else. Therefore the Negro in Vietnam is just student, Vincent Francis McGee, not only burned his helping to defeat what his black brother is fighting for in draft card but sent the following missive to the President the United States." Mora would “not fight for the blood of the United States: money of war industries" nor give his “life so that U.S.

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Enclosed you will find the remnants of that piece myself is important to me... I was about to go to jail. of paper symbolic of my former tacit approval Although this wouldn't be as good as active rebellion for and consent to the military program of these the antiwar cause, it would have at least made the U.S. United States of America.... The actuality of this feed and clothe me for five years.... Canada seemed to be country’s activity around the world and especially nicer than a jail, however, so I chose to opt out of the in Viet Nam has brought ever clearer into my struggle." For the British subject Petrokovsky, who had convictions that men must build and not destroy, been living in the United States for the past ten years, “the love and not hate. I am very much aware of the draft and the Vietnam war were reasons for my leaving.... consequences of the deed done today [April 15. I am not a pacifist, but I do not like violence or killing." 1967], but find no other way in which to effectively Pe trokovsky’s move to Canada was more an act of political protest what seems to be the decision of our resistance; it was a psycho-social form of liberation: "... government concerning the future. I cannot if there is one thing I would like to say to people... it is that participate in this evil and must cry out against it is possible to act independently, that it feels good if you it.... I for one refuse to follow those who saw but are strong enough to follow through on your act... it will were quiet in Germany before the War.... I consider be a better world."25 this act not only nontreasonous but completely The majority of immigrants to Canada were not patriotic. Blind patriotism would be treason here pacifists. Their actions, though, bear out what Viktor for me. 1 chose to follow the words of the Pope at Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived the Nazi concentration the United Nations, “War, never again." The only camps, observed in Man's Search fo r Meaning: it is effective way to ensure this that 1 can see for normal to react abnormally in an abnormal situation. myself personally is to sever every link with Self-doubt, uncertainty, confusion, and a variety of violence and war.23 ailments are common as confrontations approach. But some men never feel clearer in their lives. A release of McGee was following the example ofTom Bell, one of energy and conquering of fear come to them when doing the organizers of the Ithaca, New York "We Won't Go" what they think is right. Times of inaction or compromise group, the group which issued the call for the draft card are usually hardest. It may make some difference to see burning on April 15, 1967. For Bell, effectiveness lay in oneself as a human being facing inhuman demands. actions such as draft card burning; it pushed an individual Canada became their mirror of self-assurance.26 over a certain threshold. These personal acts of conscience prompted more brief but spectacular coalitions such as the New There is a real agony for me in the dilemma Mobilization. The “Mobe" discovered the basis of coalition presented by seeing this great opportunity for in opposition to the Viet Nam war when it organized political organizing and action versus the massive marches in New York and San Francisco on April likelihood that a lot of people are going to be hurt 15, 1967.27 Originally called the Spring Mobilization to (including myself) by the action being taken.... 1 End the War in Vietnam, it was a loose coalition of groups don’t like national actions, but I do want to which sought to bank the fires of military involvement. change America. I like a personal deep The two parades were a tremendous success. As usual, communication type of politics, but perhaps this estimates of attendance varied according to the source; is not really political. I don’t want to manipulate anywhere from 100,000 (police estimate) to 400,000 anyone but I feel that it [is] essential for my own (Mobe estimate) turned out in New York and probably struggle and for the development of all of us as about 50,000 in San Francisco. human beings that people change.24 That spring and summer witnessed some of the worst racial riots in United States history. The black The commitment to personal liberty in a democratic ghetloes of Detroit and Newark burned. It appeared as if society remained intact. the real war zone lay in the urban United States. Angered Fleeing to Canada became another visible by the war and racial injustice at home, four members of manifestation of the preservation of democratic freedom. the Baltimore Interfaith Peace Mission provided a new Alice Lynd, wife of war resister and former college professor tactic to the antiwar protest. Entering the Baltimore Staughton Lynd, compiled a useful anthology recounting Customs House they poured a mixture of their own blood the inner feelings of antiwar activists. In We Won't Go and duck blood on 1-A draft records being stored there. Lynd discusses the reasons young U.S. men fled to Their action requires no further commentary.28 Canada and includes their own personal statement. For Perhaps the highlight of the year's antiwar activities Richard Paterak. a graduate of Marquette University, the occurred during the weekend of October 21-22, when "unavoidable conclusion was that we [U.S.) were being approximately 100,000 Americans entered Washington, politically impractical, internationally as well as DC to protest the Viet Nam war. It was the largest antiwar domestically, and, at the same time, immoral." He could protest in United States history. After a Saturday morning not see "wasting a good portion of my life in jail due to of speeches and song near the Lincoln Memorial, 35,000 commitment to revolution in the U.S., for 1 believe protestors crossed the Potomac to the Pentagon,where revolution in the U.S. will be provoked as much from they confronted close to 3,000 U.S. troops and federal without as from within." To David Taube, an Army marshals dispatched to protect the capital from American reservist, the thought of killing "innocent Vietnamese" citizens for the first time since the depression-ridden was a reality he could not live with: “Since living with 1932 Bonus March of World War I veterans. During that

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don't need your ghetto scene." Even black soul singers hectic weekend, confrontations between the two opposing questioned the efficacy of the war. The Temptations' “Ball factions resulted in 47 injuries and 683 arrests. Though of Confusion" included a list of grievances against United the Pentagon was saved, the White House kept intact, States society, including “end the war," and Freda Payne's and the halls of Congress still clean, antiwar militants “Bring the Boys Home" was popular on soul and top forty expressed more determination than ever to escalate their stations. In 1970, Edwin Starr's “War” was the number opposition from simple dissent to outright resistance.29 one song in most major cities. The chorus repeated: The Johnson Administration, however, initiated its "War... HUH! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"32 own attack. In an effort to discredit the peace movement During the first half of 1968 Americans really by linking it to communism, Johnson prodded the Central wondered whether or not the nation had reached its Intelligence Agency to investigate the underpinnings of breaking point. Between April and September the country antiwar dissent. With Operation CHAOS in full swing in witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. August 1967, surveillance of domestic dissidents was and Robert F. Kennedy, violence on campus, the burning undertaken. According to the agency’s report of draft boards, and political hippies (called Yippies and “International Connections of U.S. Peace Movement." led by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin) who attempted to some 7,200 Americans had been "bugged" by 1970, with disrupt the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. a computer index to the names of an additional 300,000 Students at Columbia University showed their individuals and groups. Yet with all this sophisticated rebellion with a takeover. The Momingside campus on equipment. CIA director Richard Helms admitted that the upper west side of Manhattan buzzed with activity as communist control of domestic dissent was more myth student radicals rebelled against the university. During than reality, much to Johnson's annoyance.30 the week of April 23-30th, SDS and the Students Afro- By early 1968, Johnson was losing political ground American society (SAS) led 700 to 1,000 students in the fast. Democratic contenders Eugene McCarthy seizure of five university buildings. The spark that set off (Minnesota) and Robert Kennedy (New York) began the explosion was an SDS rally called to protest Columbia’s chipping away at Johnson's foreign policy. While Johnson relation to the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), the attempted to hold them off. the NLF's Tet offensive school's “racist policies," and the administration’s placing destroyed the President’s base of political power. The of six SDS leaders—including Mark Rudd—on probation NLF's major attacks on thirty provincial cities, a month­ for violation of a rule against indoor demonstrations. long occupation of the city of Hue, and the attacks on the After six days, with the aid of more than 1,000 policemen, U.S. embassy in Saigon damaged Johnson's political the buildings were reoccupied. But the campus was in stability. Though the NLF suffered heavy casualties, chaos. For the rest of the academic year education came losing the m ililaiy battle, they won a crushing political to a standstill. The assassinations of King and Kennedy, victory. Within a short period of time, on March 31. particularly, angered civil rights and political liberals on Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek reelection. campus.33 It signaled the end of Washington’s desire to win the war While conflict on campus became a regular militarily through the open-ended use of ground troops. occurrence, many Catholic peace activists showed their Still, the U.S. troops in Viet Nam kept marching disdain for the war by destroying draft boards. On May through rice paddies while antiwar dissidents sang in 17, 1968, a group of antiwar Catholics used a mixture of protest. In the sixties a number of songs criticized the homemade “napalm" to bum Selective Service files in war. P.F. Sloane's “Eve of Destruction," Donovan’s “The Catonsville, Maryland. The Catonsville Nine, which War Goes On," and Buffy Saint-Marie's “Universal Soldier” included the brother priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan, all made the Top Forty charts. Beaile 's sparked a long series of draft board raids that did not end simple chant “All we are saying is give peace a chance" until 1972.34 From coast to coast similar raids occurred was perhaps the most popular and frequently heard at in Boston, New York, Milwaukee, Chicago, Los Angeles, antiwar moratoriums and rallies. Pete Seeger’s “Waist Evanston (IL), and San Jose (CA). Such actions prompted Deep in the Big Muddy" and “Bring Them Home" were attention to corporate involvement in the war. Corporation popular songs played at antiwar gatherings. The Asian office and factory raids followed much the same style as conflict gave rise to a number of songs by more traditional action against draft boards. In Washington, DC, a group composers. Eric Burden’s “Sky Pilot" was a ringing of nine Catholics raided the offices of DOW Chemical condemnation of military chaplains who sent soldiers out Company and exposed official documents tying DOW to die. while Earth Opera’s "American Eagle Tragedy" directly to manufacturing napalm used in the war. Some indicted the president as a king preoccupied with wealth months later, another group calling itself The Beaver 55 while the “kingdom is rumbling." The nation, the song scrambled computer tapes at Dow's Midland, Michigan repeats, is falling as “the king" sends our “lovely boys to research center. die in a foreign jungle war.”31 Throughout these years the Catholic Left resorted to 11 seemed as though an tiwar songs became a popular other targets. The Media, Pennsylvania office of the FBI medium of protest, apart from musical aesthetics. was raided by an anonymous group. Their expropriation Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son” was a of certain documents proved that the FBI was conducting refusal of induction into the armed forces with “some covert and illegal surveillance of groups and individuals folks... made to wave the flag... 11 ain't me, it ain't me. ” The working for social change. Bomb casings at a York, Canadian rock group, the Guess Who, expressed in Pennsylvania manufacturer were dismantled. At Hickam “American Woman," “I don't need your war machine. 1 Air Force Base in Hawaii, blood was poured on secret

104 S u m m c r -F aII, 1992 ViET INaim G eneration VoIume 4 Nu/vibcR 5-4 documents concerning electronic warfare which was Fellowship of Reconciliation. CPF emphasized the pacifist reducing the government's need for conscripts to cont inue traditions of the Catholic Church, participated in direct, the war. nonviolent antiwar protests, organized study conferences, Participants in the various raids based their rationale and counseled conscientious objectors. CPF's views were on several events in both religious and secular history. best summed up by one of its spiritual leaders, Dorothy They cited the clearing of the moneychangers from the Day, who said: Temple by Jesus, and the Boston Tea Party preceding the American Revolution. They held that nothing short of I speak today as one who is old, and who must civil disobedience and direct interference with the war endorse the courage of the young who themselves machine would be effective. Their most commonly used are willing to give up their freedom. I speak as phrase was. “some property has no right to exist." Draft one... whose whole lifetime has seen the cruelty records, computer tapes, surveillance files, industrial and hysteria of war in the last half-century.... I war research, and secret files used to further the war and wish to place myself beside A.J. Muste, to show stop the peace effort were put into the same category as my solidarity of purpose with these young men. the furnaces of Auschwitz and Dachau were used solely and to point out that we, too, are breaking the for the purpose of destroying life. In the words of one law, committing civil disobedience.36 pacifist priest, “It was saner to burn papers rather than children."35 Though the Johnson years were now at an end, the Generally, the action communities resisted openly, public did not rejoice over the choice of successors. destroying property and waiting for arrest. In many cases Republican Richard Nixon, Democrat Hubert Humphrey, members of the news media were invited to view the event and independent Alabama governor all so that the group would receive as much publicity as gave the impression that the war should end, but on possible. The trials which followed were often used as United States terms. What the Presidential choice boiled forums to discuss the war. raise the question of property down to was the selection of a candidate most closely rights, focus public attention on Viet Nam, and challenge dissociated from the Johnson Administration. That the Judiciary to take legal responsibility where the distinction fell to Eisenhower's former vice-president, Executive and Legislative would not. Those who went to Richard M. Nixon, who promised to restore law and order jail considered incarceration as an essential part of their and end the war by winning the peace. resistance. But Nixon had no intention of ending United States In time the style of disobedience was replaced by military involvement until the South Vietnamese could covert activity. Raids were carried out by anonymous hold their own militarily. Using Spiro Agnew, his vice- groups who either took responsibility at a later date, or, president, as a foil, Nixon sought to circumvent peace in certain instances, not at all. The move to covert action groups while pressing North Viet Nam to negotiate on was considered a further step in their resistance. Rather U.S. terms. Adding to the peace movement's frustration than willingly go to jail, they preferred to make the was not only its failure to capture the Democratic Party government work for arrest and conviction; the intent nomination for Eugene McCarthy or explicit repudiation was to demonstrate that personal and public of the war that enabled Nixon to become president but inconvenience works both ways. If it was an inconvenience also the wave of political persecutions, particularly of the to be drafted, it was also an inconvenience to be prevented Chicago 8 and the Black Panthers, which swept through from implementing such policy. These hit-and-run raids the country. The possibility of another Joe McCarthy (a tactic the Viet Cong had been using effectively against witch hunt led antiwar radicals to form a new coalition. U.S. troops) were experiments with styles of resistance By late summer 1969, it had created the New Mobilization that held the line at destroying property rather than Committee. Its trademark was “politics of confrontation." people. While the issue of property destruction did raise Another coalition took shape that summer based many eyebrows within pacifist circles, the question of largely upon the conjunction of political elements from property rights versus human rights was brought to the the Kennedy-McCarthy campaigns. This was the attention of millions of Americans in a very significant Moratorium, whose tactic involved a kind of popular way. The draft board/corporation actions were important strike against business-as-usual for one day in October, contributions to the strategy of war resistance at a time to expand in duration each month as long as the war when many people felt powerless to stop the war machine. continued. This was a form of consensus politics to exert Besides the strength and consistency of their pressure through normal political channels, the creation objections to the war numerous Catholics joined the of an expanding base of popular awareness and opposition. Catholic Peace Fellowship. CPF was founded in the The Moratorium consisted of antiwar activists who were summer of 1964 by the Berrigan brothers and three not inclined to pursue confrontation through radical former Catholic Worker editors—Tom Cornell, James measures.37 Forrest, and Martin J. Corbin. Its sponsors included The Moratorium, however, was faced with a critical Dorothy Day, John Deedy of Commonweal, Gordon Zahn, choice of tactics. The New Mobe called for mass marches Thomas Merton, and Monsignor Paul Hanly Furfey. in Washington, DC and San Francisco at the same time Formed in the spirit of Vatican II, which “turned the as the Moratorium program. As usual issues of strategy Church to the world," CPF became the only Catholic and tactics plagued peace coalitions as radical and peace group that was institutionally connected to non- respectable antiwar activists debated the merits of their Catholics, namely the primarily Protestant, ecuminical approaches. The issue between the Moratorium

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“moderates" and the New Mobe “radicals" was, in the men—students and nonstudents alike—to one year of opinion of Sidney Lens, a simple one: “the Moratorium draft vulnerability after their nineteenth birthday. If their kids aren't all that conservative. The difference... between lottery number was high enough they could forget all us is that in their thinking everything goes back to the about it. Consequently with more than one-half of all ballot boxes. In our thinking, everything goes back to the students instantly freed from the possibility of going to streets." For Sam Brown of the Moratorium, however, it Viet Nam, the antiwar movement lost its most immediately was a philosophical, even an intellectual question: compelling issue. Such governmental action, though effective in the long run, was marred by a series of White Was in fact the country on the verge of some sort House decisions regarding military moves in Southeast of fundamental and radical change in terms of Asia. The domestic consequences proved to be tragic and the way it is going to see itself over the next thirty irreparable.40 years, and is the [Vietnam] war going to be the On April 30, Nixon announced the invasion of precipitant factor in creating that kind of change/ Cambodia and the renewed bombing of North Viet Nam. Or is the war aberrational and, therefore, the Immediately, his actions touched off a roar of antiwar coalition of people ad hoc? And that largely demonstrations on college campuses across the country. depended on how you saw America.... Perhaps none was more traumatic than when, on May 4, If [my view] was right.then you needed to Ohio National Guardsmen were given the order to lock appeal to the decent, common, shared instincts and load, aim, and fire: in the process thirteen students o f the American people. If we’re in a pre- were shot down at . Four died. The revolutionaiy state, then screw the great middle death of the four Kent State students during the protest class... put together the coalition that over the prompted songwriter to write “Ohio" with the next thirty years will change the country. refrain “Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming... this summer I always thought that a cynical notion I hear the drumming... Four dead in Ohio, Four dead in because... it took the war as an issue and used Ohio.” Close to 470 colleges and universities struck or it as an organizing tactic to complete some other closed down; antiwar demonstrations were reported on agenda. nearly 60 percent of the country's campuses. Unfortunately, peace leaders were never able to convert The peace movement constantly faced the unpleasant the high level of student unrest into a viable agency of prospect that protests would be “a political disaster" and policy change.41 that broad community support against the war would The antiwar movement did receive an added boost in break down in “a conflict between radicals and centrist September 1970, when the Vietnam Veterans Against the critics of the war." In this particular case, Moratorium War, a three-year-old organization, launched Operation leaders realized that they could ill afford to lose the RAW (Rapid American Withdrawal). Armed with toy guns support of the left wing of the antiwar movement and thus and dressed in utilities with 782 gear—standard military agreed to cooperate with the March in the hope of averting equipment—W AW troops re-enacted their battlefield either a fiasco or violence.38 experiences at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Four months In Washington on November 15. 1969, between later in Detroit the organization conducted a three-day 250,000 and 500.000 war protesters marched down the “Winter Soldier Investigation" which focused on the Lt. streets of the nation’s capital. Millions watched what William Calley/My Lai massacre. W AW contributed to seemed to be a cohesive coalition, little knowing that the the antiwar movement by making middle-class America platform and speakers’ policy had been determined face the possibility that the war was forcing clean-cut through frantic talks between staffs of organizations young men to resort to drugs because of the which were at the same time competing against each purposelessness of their sacrifice. W AW visibly other for constituents within the antiwar movement. demonstrated the erosion of morale and lack of respect Once the March was over the coalition broke up. The for authority within the armed forces. This author vividly Moratorium thus became an early casualty, suffering remembers a number of marines at his base, upon being from competition among peace groups and from the discharged in San Diego, gathering in a circle and hollering rivalry of another coalition with fundamentally alternative “Fuck the corps." Disillusionment undoubtedly ran deep.42 tactics. Clearly the politics of coalition had not organized The failure of the United States-sponsored ARVN a vision of peace much beyond the curtailment of United invasion of Laos in early 1971 led to further antiwar States involvement in the Viet Nam war.39 actions. In March a group of Madison Avenue advertisers The antiwar movement lost momentum early in started the “Help Unsell the War Campaign," in an effort 1970 as the peace coalitions broke up after the March. to convert public opinion against the war; if Ivory Soap, Their diffusion was due immeasurably to a new Selective Crest and Mustangs could be sold, why not sell out the Service law passed by Congress. In November of 1969, war? On May 3. 1971, the radical May Day Collective the Nixon Administration set up a draft lottery system. It attempted to blockade road entrances in Washington, DC succeeded in separating the twin issues of opposition to by using stalled cars, garbage cans, broken fences, and the draft from opposition to the war. Almost all young even their own bodies. Nixon, a law and order man, Americans hated the draft, thus rapidly filling the ranks imposed martial law and under the direction of the of peace groups: how many actually hated the war or Justice Department, the police arrested over 12,000 mocked their country's military honor was another people detaining them at RFK Stadium. It was the largest question. The masterstroke of the law was limiting all mass jailing in U.S. history.43 Four years later a

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Washington federal court ordered the government to pay student obstructionist, the aider and abettor of those $10,000 to 1,200 of those arrested for violation of their who violated the conscription laws, the youths who fled civil rights. to Canada. How ironic that thousands of Americans Antiwar sentiment was also visibly aroused with the whose ancestors fled Europe to escape the degradation of publication of The Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg, a military conscription condemned U.S. citizens who Pentagon official, became deeply troubled by the war. migrated to Canada for similar reasons. Many of these Two years earlier, in the summer of 1969, Ellsberg dissenters, unlike previous generations, were emancipated attended a War Resisters' International Triennial from the notion of a “righteous" war. To them such a conference at Haverford, Pennsylvania. While there a shibboleth was analogous to proposing to fly to the moon young draft resister named Randy Kehler, who was on his astride a broomstick. They no longer believed that the way to jail, had made a special impression on Ellsberg. United States had been guiltless in causing earlier wars When he returned from the conference he read Thoreau’s or in the methods it has used. A higher degree of “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" and proclaimed to his sophistication with a consistent pattern of dissent son, “This may be the most important essay I've ever characterized the Viet Nam war protesters. read."44 For someone whose specialities had been guerrilla Most importantly, the antiwar movement did not warfare, counterinsurgency, nuclear planning, and crisis end the war. That was accomplished by the American decision-making, this was quite a revelation. A few days people “withdrawing passive support for it." The movement later, Ellsberg, his son Robert, and a friend named Tony historian Charles Chatfield argues, forced the issue in Russo copied military documents which showed that Viet three ways. First, “it generated alternative sources of Nam was a well-planned program of United States policy authority on Vietnam policy, clarifying the political and in Southeast Asia. When the documents were leaked to moral issues involved." Second, the antiwar movement the press, millions of Americans felt betrayed. “mobilized enough opposition to set perameters on war Throughout 1972, though the war raged on and the policy that were exceeded... only in violation of presidential Watergate crisis began to unfold, Nixon solidified his hold accountability.'Third, the movement “added to the social on the presidency with some impressive foreign policy cost of the war by the veiy controversy it engendered." coups. In February he visited the People's Republic of Despite the movement's multiplicity of leadership and China, thereby ending over two decades of Sino-American organized constituencies, it was “organized independently distrust. In June he traveled to Moscow for the conclusion where people lived and worked." Basically, “people of the first phase of a strategic arms limitation agreement. themselves became disillusioned with the war and impelled Though his democratic challenger for the White House, to do something about it." The most remarkable George McGovern of South Dakota, tried to portray the achievement of the peace/antiwar movement was its upcoming November election as “the clearest choice in ability to be flexible with local branches and individuals this century" between peace and war, Nixon won easily. and to offer them a variety of options. According to Finally, after having reassured the Thieu government in Chatfield, “antiwar organizations, which were mostly Saigon of postwar protection the United States officially centralized on the national level, were faced with the signed the Paris Peace accords on January 27. 1973. problem of mobilizing public sentiment, which was highly American military involvement in the Indochina war was decentralized and even suspicious of organized protest." now over. The war cost over 50,000 American lives. The movement's innovative forms of protest successfully The war's tragedies did produce one positive piece of brought together these diverse coalitions under one congressional legislation: the War Powers Resolution of banner.46 1973. Specifically under the War Powers Resolution, the In June 1975, two years after U.S. military president must consult with Congress before introducing involvement ended, the FOR's organ ofprint. Fellowship, the armed forces “into hostilities or into situations where declared, 'The war is over, the problem of war remains imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated intact."47 Yes, the war in Indochina officially came to an by the circumstances." Trying to control the Executive end when Thieu left Saigon on April 21, and the U.S. Branch's war-making powers. Congress passed the 1973 embassy closed its doors nine days later. But for the most law requiring that American troops be allowed no more part, like the war it opposed, the antiwar movement arose than ninety days on foreign soil. After that time the from obscure beginnings, held the nation's attention for President must seek the Congress' permission to keep a time, and then faded away. Afterward those who took troops abroad. The purpose of this law was to prevent part in it, like those who fought the war, found that the future Viet Nam wars, where civilian and military strategies nation did not want to hear about their decade-long were at cross purposes.45 struggle to speak truth to power. One of those truths, and The antiwar demonstrations of the sixties and early one of the most important lessons of the war, was that the seventies were unique in United States history. Even U.S. citizens learned that they could be wrong—a though they were less internationalist, more an timilitarist, profoundly maturing lesson for either an individual or a more anti-imperialist, concentrating on reversing U.S. nation. war policy in Asia, the size of the protests indicates how Another truth was that the problem of war remained strong antiwar feeling actually was during this period. To unchanged. For veteran peace workers the struggle the peace movement itself, the war was a dramatic continued. It was time once again to respond to the exhibition of the threat of militarism in American life. spiraling arms race, nuclear war, environmental pollution, This view sustained and pumped blood into the American and social and economic injustice. The Viet Nam war tradition of dissent. Hence the draft-card burner, the experience strengthened U.S. peaceseekers' resolve to

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turn swords into ploughshares. Their successful the most comprehensive history of the Viet Nam antiwar opposition to the Viet Nam war had forced the government movement. to recognize its failure-it is impossible to say what would 5 Powers, Vietnam: The W ar at Home: 140. 6Traditional Cold War peace organizations like SAND and CNVA have happened if there had been no opposition and the arc ably discussed in the following works: Robert A. Divine, U.S. government had been free to fight in anyway it chose Blowing on the W ind: The Nuclear Test Ban Debate, 1954- for as long as it liked. Because of what had happened and 1 9 6 0 (NY: WW Norton) 1978; Milton Katz, “Peace, Politics & what might possibly happen again, peace activists were Protest: SANE and the American Peace Movement, 1957-1972 determined more than ever to say, “Just give peace a (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, St. Louis University) 1973; and Neil chance."48 Katz, "Radical Pacifism and the Contemporary American Peace Movement: The Committee for Nonviolent Action, 1957-1967" (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Maryland) 1974. N o t e s 7 Rising as a constellation of dissident intellectuals, disaffected 1 Quoted in Michael Fcrbcr & Staughton Lynd, The Resistance students, and the culturally alienated, the New Left came upon (Boston: Beacon Press) 1971: 26; New York Times, 11 Nov 1965: 3. the scene in 1962 in rebellion against corporate bureaucratic 2 Thomas Hardy, “The Man He Killed," in M.H. Abrams, ct al„ structures in government and education in favor o f more direct eds., The Norton Anthology o f English Literature (New York: and personal decision-making forms that it idealized in the WW Norton) 1958. phrase "participatory democracy" and that it tried to live in 3 Thomas Powers, Vietnam: The War at Home (Boston: G.K. organizations like Students for a Democratic Society and the Hall) 1984, presents an insightful overview of the domestic Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It also felt a turmoil and strife. The introduction and Chapter 1 arc most compelling need to reorder U.S. priorities so as to re-emphasize helpful. Other works to consult arc: Mitchel K. Hall, B e c a u s e o f domestic problems and "force a cessation of the arms race." Their Faith: CADCAV and Religious Opposition to the Consult “America and the New Era," June 1963, manifesto Vietnam War (New York: Columbia University Press) 1990; Mel issued by Students for a Democratic Society, Box 29a, Social Small, Johnson, Nixon, and the Doves (New Brunswick, NJ: Protest Project, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley; "Port Huron Rutgers University Press) 1988; and Mel Small and William D. Statement" (1962) and Tom Hayden, “Student Social Action: Hoover, eds., Give Peace a Chance: Essays from the Charles From Liberation to Community" (March 1962), Box 57, New Left DeBenedetti Memorial Conference on the Vietnam Antiwar Collection, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, M o v e m e n t (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press) 1992.0ne of Stanford University. Helpful studies include Edward J. Bacciocco, the most ambitious and challenging programs to date was The Jr., The New Left in Am erica: Reform to Revolution, 1950 to Center for the Study of the Vietnam Generation. 11 was a network 1 9 7 0 (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press) 1974; Irwin ofscholars, writers.journalists, historians, sociologists, political Unger, The Movem ent: A History o f the American New Left, scientists, religious clergy and others interested in studying how 1 9 5 9 -1 9 7 2 (NY: Dodd, Mead) 1974; and James Weinstein, the events of the 1960s and early 1970s—among them the Viet Ambiguous Legacy: The Left in American Politics (NY: New Nam war, warprotest, civil rights movement, women's movement, Viewpoints) 1975. and Watergate--affect the actions and attitudes of the 60 million 8 Sidney Lens, Unrepentant Radical (Boston: Beacon Press) men and women who came of age during that time. (Editor's 1980: 318. See also Lens, “Why the Committees of note: The Center for the Study of the Vietnam Generation was Correspondence?" nd. Personal Box. Sidney Lens Papers, Division discontinued in 1988, when its founder, John Wheeler, decided of Archives and Manuscripts, Chicago Historical Society. to halt its work. The files of the Center were handed over to the 9 Conlin, ed., American Anti-W ar Movements: 105-127. Indochina Institute at George Mason University, and the 10 Quoted in Jo Ann O. Robinson, Abraham Went Out: A organization ceased to exist. Viet Nam Generation, though it Biography ofA.J. Muste(Philadclphia: Temple University Press) has no connection to the Center, was founded to continue a 1981: 202. tradition of inquiry into the Viet Nam war era. I 11 Sec the following representative works: Claybome Carson, In 4 There are a number of useful historical works and anthologies Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s covering the peace movement and the Viet Nam war: Charles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press) 1981; David J. Garrow, DeBenedetti, The Peace Reform in America (Bloomington, IN: The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Indiana Univ. Press) 1980; Charles DeBenedetti, An American M e m p h is (NY: WW Norton) 1981; John Ricks, “ De Lawd' Ordeal: The Antiwar Movem ent o f the Vietnam Era (Syracuse, Descends and is Crucified: Martin Luther King in Albany, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press) 1990; Charles Chatfield, cd., P e a c e Georgia," Journal of Southwest Georgia History (Fall 1984); Movements in America (NY: Schockcn Books) 1973; Thomas Martin L. King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom [NY: Mentor) 1958; Powers. Vietnam: The War at Home ; Nancy Zaroulis and Harvard Silkoff, The Struggle fo r Black Equality, 1954-1980 Gerald Sullivan, Who Spoke Up? American Protest Against (NY: Holmes and Meier) 1981; August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, th e W a r in Vietnam, 1963-1974 (NY: Holt, Reinhardt, CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement, 1942-1968 Winston) 1984; Joseph R. Conlin, ed., American Anti-War (Urbana, 1L: Univ. of IL Press) 1975; Howard Zinn, S N C C : T h e M o v e m e n t s (Beverly Hills, CA: Glencoe Press) 1970; Staughton New Abolitionists (Boston: Beacon Press) 1964. Lynd, ed., Non-Violence in America: A Documentary History 12 Jerry Rubin, e l a i , “October 15, 16—Days of International (NY: Grove Press) 1985; Robert D. Schulzinger, ed., "The War in Protest," Vietnam Day Committee N e w s 1:2 (Jul-Aug 1965): 1. Vietnam and Its Legacy." special edition, Peace and Change IX The link between peace and social justice represented an (Summer 1983); John M. Carroll, "The Agony of Vietnam," in outgrowth of the “modem" American peace movement that William W. MacDonald, et a i , eds. Conflict and Change: appeared during the First World War. Liberal pacifists, like America 1939 to Present (River City, CA: River City Muste, argued that there could be no peace without justice at Publications) 1983; my AI 1A Pamphlet, co-author Glen Zcitzer, home. On this score sec Charles Chatfield, For Peace and The American Peace Movemen t: History and Historiography Justice: Pacifism in America, 1914-1941 (Knoxville, TN: (Washington, DC: American Historical Association) 1985, and, University of Tennessee Press) 1971. Charles Chatfield, The American Peace Movement: Ideals 13 Milton S. Katz, “Peace Liberals and Vietnam: SANE and the and Activism (New York: Twayne Publishers), 1992. De Polities of'Responsible' Protest," Peace and Change IX, no. 2/ Bcncdctti's An American Ordeal was completed by historian 3 (Summer 1983): 21-4; Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS (NY: Random Charles Chatfield upon thcauthor'suntimely death. It represents House) 1974: 242-243.

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14 Louis Mcnsahc and Ronald Radosh, cds.. Teach-ins: USA 37 Paul Hoffman, Moratorium: An American Protest (NewYork: (NY: Praegcr) 1967, passim: Zaroulis and Sullivan, W h o S p o k e Tower Publications) 1970, passim: Zaroulis and Sullivan, W h o U p ? : 37-8,43-6, 140-41,416-17. S p o k e U p ? : 249-300; DeBcncdctti, T h e P e a c e R e f o r m : 185-7. 15 Patti McGill Peterson, "Student Organizations and the Anti- 38 Ken Hurwitz, Marching Nowhere (NY: WW Norton) 1971 and War Movemcntin America," inChatficld, cd., Peace Movements Sam Brown, T h e Politics of Peace,' T h e Washington Monthly in A m e r ic a : 1 16-132: i lowlcttandZcitzcr, The American Peace II, no. 6 (Aug 1970): 24-46; Lens, Unrepentant Radical: 356; M o v e m e n t: 37-38. New York Times, 20 Oct, 18 and 30 Nov 1969. 16 New York Times, 27 Mar 1966: 1. 39 For a scholarly analysis of the dilemma of peace coalitions see 17 New York Times, 21-22 April 1966; T h e Saigon Project," A.J. Chatfield's introduction to his edited work, Peace Movements Muste Papers, Box 43, Swarthmore College Peace Collection. in America: xxvi-xxviii. Also consult Brabford Lyttle, T h e l8N e w Y o r k T im e s , 27 Feb 1966. Chicago Anti-Vietnam W a r M o v e m e n t (Chicago: Midwest 19 Martin Luther King, Jr., “Declaration of Independence from Pacifist Center) 1988. the War in Vietnam," in Lillian Schlisscl, ed., Conscience in 40 Thomas Reeves and Karl Hess, T h e E n d of the Draft (NY: Am erica: A Documen tary History o f Conscientious Objection Random House) 1970, passim inAmerica, 1757-1967 (NY: E.P. Dutton) 1968: 426-433. 41 Denisoff, cd., Songs of Protest, W ar and Peace: 6; Zaroulis 20 Quoted in Alice Lynd, ed., W e W o n 't G o (Boston: Beacon Press) and Sullivan, W h o S p o k e U p ? : 319-23; I.F. Stone. The Killings 1968: 181-202. at Kent Sate (NY: Vintage) 1971; N e w Y o r k T im e s , 5 May 1970. 21 Fort Hood Three, pamphlet, July 1966, Muste Papers, Box 43; See also Susie Ercnrich, editor, Kent and Jackson State: 1970- N e w Y o r k P o s t 10 Oct 1966. Also consult, William King, editor, 1 9 9 0 2:2, special issue of Vietnam Generation (1990). A White Man's War: Race Issues and Vietnam 1:2, special 42 W A W History, Box 6, The State Historical Society ofWisconsin; issue of Vietnam G e n e r a t io n (1989). David Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt: The American Military 22 A.J. Muste, "Last Words," L ib e r a t io n (Scp-Oet 1967): 52-7; T o d a y (Garden City, NY: Doublcday) 1975, chapter 1; Edward Philip S. Foncr, American Labor and the Indochina War: M. Opton, Jr. and Robert Ducklcss, "Mental Gymnastics on Growth of Union Opposition (NY: International Publishers) Mylai," T h e New Republic 162, no. 8 (21 Feb 1970): 14-16; 1971: 48-59; John Kenneth Galbraith, How to Get Out of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, T h e W in t e r S o l d i e r V ie tn a m (NY: New American Library) 1967: 22. Investigations (Boston: Beacon Press) 1972; John Kerry, 23 Quoted in Don Lawson, Ten Fightersfor Peace (NY: Lothrop, “Vietnam Veterans Against the War," in David Thome and Lee and Shepard) 1971: 74, 87; see also Michael Useem, George Butler, eds., T h e N e w S o l d i e r (NY: Macmillan) 1971. Conscription, Protest and Social Conflict: The Life and 43 New York Times, 4-6 May 1971. Death o f a Draft Resistance Movem ent (NY: John Wiley) 1973); 44 “On Daniel Ellsbcrg: Remembering the P e n t a g o n P a p e r s ," in David M. Mantcll, True Americanism: Green Berets and War Gara, ed., T o Secure Peace and Liberty: 105-6; Daniel R e s is t e r s (NY: Teachers College Press) 1974; Ferbcr and Lynd, Ellsberg, Papers on the W ar (NY: Simon & Schuster) 1982. eds., The Resistance, passim. 4r>Jacob K. Javits, "Who Decides on War?" New York Times 24 Lynd, cd., W e W o n 't G o : 206. M a g a z in e (23 Oct 1973): 92 & ff; N e w s d a y , 16 Sep 1983: 3. 25 Ibid.: 109-119. 46Chatficld, The American Peace Movement: 143-145. 26 For this observation it is worth examining Renee G. Kasinsky, 47 "At Last. At Last..." F e llo w s h i p 41, no. 6 (Jun 1975): 3. Refugees from Militarism: Draft-Age Americans in Canada M Unfortunately, the military-oriented assumptions of the cold (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books) 1976. War that led us into Viet Nam remain. Although the peace 27 “April 15 Demonstrations of Spring Mobilization Committee," movement contributed to discrediting and eventually ending 12 Feb 1967, SANE Mss, SCPC; W a s h in g t o n Post, 7 Apr 1967: U.S. involvement in Viet Nam, despite their efforts they seem to 1; NewYork Times, 13 Apr 1967: 3: Zaroulis and Sullivan, W h o have had little impact on the nature either of U.S. society or its S p o k e U p ? : 110; Norman Cousins, "Public Opinion and approach to world affairs. For a retrospective analysis on the Vietnam," Saturday Review, 29 Apr 1967: 4. impact of the antiwar movement sec, Michael Walzer, T h e Peace 28 Daniel Bcrrigan, No Bars to Manhood (Garden City, NY: Movement: What Was Won by Protest?" New Republic (10 Feb Doublcday) 1970: 23-5. 1973): 25; James O'Brien, T h e Anti-War Movement and the 29“ACall to Resist,' New Republic (7 Oct 1967); New York Times, War," Radical AmericaVUl (May-Jun 1974): 53-86; and Katz, 20 Oct 1967: 1; "Confront the Warmakers—October 21 & 22," “Peace Liberals and Vietnam": 21 -39. New Left Notes (18 Sep 1967): 2. For a useful list of the major antiwar demonstrations of this period consult Irving Horowitz, The Struggle is the Message: The Organization and Ideology of the Anti-War Movement (Berkeley, CA: The Glendessary Press) 1970: 148-67; Jerome II. Skolniek, The Politics of P r o t e s t (NY: Ballantine Books) 1969: 25-78. 30Charlcs DcBencdetti, “A CIA Analysis of the Anti-Vietnam War Movement: October 1967," P e a c e a n d C h a n g e IX, no. 1 (Spring 1983): 31-41. 31 R. Serge Denisoff, cd.. Songs of Protest, War and Peace (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO) 1973; Terry Howard Anderson, "American Popular Music and the War in Vietnam," P e a c e a n d C h a n g e (forthcoming). 32 DcnisolT, cd.. Songs of Protest, W a r a n d P e a c e : 5-6. 33 The Cox Commission Report, Crisis at Columbia (NY: Vintage Books) 1968, passim. 34 Daniel Bcrrigan. The Trial o f the Catonsville Nine (Boston: Beacon Press) 1970: passim. 35 Quoted in Utrry Gera, ed., T o S e c u r e Peace and Liberty (New York: War Resistors Ixaguc) 1976: 102. 36 Quoted in Nancy L. Roberts, Dorothy Day and the Catholic W o r k e r (Albany. NY: SUNY Press) 1984: 163.

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V ietnam W ar REfouqhT: K ent S tate, 1977 Americans wanted America to be strong, decisive and magnanimous at the same time. “The war," observes Thomas Powers, “was one of those things that come along Miriam R. Jackson. 424 E. Summit St.. Kent. OH 44240 once in a generation and call entire societies into question, forcing people to choose between irreconcilables." Some adopted the perspective that enabled Socialist leader The 1977 Kent State University gymnasium annex Norman Thomas to declare at an antiwar rally in late controversy, or “gym struggle," emerged when University 1965 that he would "rather see America save her soul plans to take up part of the site of the 1970 Student- than her face" there.2 But in the opinion of others, National Guard confrontation with a gymnasium annex America was not choosing to display the military will and became widely known. The effort to preserve the entire power necessary to win the war, even if victory required confrontation site was launched by a student-led group a war with China, or, as Curtis LeMay put it. bombing Viet called the May 4th Coalition, in the face of the Nam “back to the Stone Age," or that Viet Nam be determination of the Kent State administration and destroyed in order to save it. Yet America's military power Board ofTrustees to construct the annex as planned. But was unquestionably ruining land and killing people— the dimensions of the struggle—its origins, participants, many of them civilians—hardly the results one would scope, course and outcome—were much broader than its have expected from an enterprise conducted by a generous, immediate goal might have implied. In fact, the May 4th humane nation. Coalition sought to bring before the American public for Thus, the nation experienced isolation and sometimes its serious consideration, during the spring, summer and actual condemnation abroad and a degree of political and fall of 1977, some fundamental questions raised by the spiritual division and anguish at home unknown since Viet Nam war and its accompanying domestic unrest. the Civil War. The Viet Nam war was not one with which The gym struggle of 1977 took place in the shadow Americans could long comfortably have lived. of the Viet Nam war, the cause and symptom of so many During the early stages of the war. antiwar contradictions and divisions within American society for demonstrators seemed, to most Americans, at best to be most of a decade. The Viet Nam era, recalls journalist pacifists too cowardly to do their duty for their country Thomas Powers, “was a terrible time that seemed to go on and the Free World, and, at worst, to be unpatriotic, forever," a period during which polarization, frustration obstructing the war effort and/or taking the side of the and anguish became the central facts in the lives "of an enemy. One poll taken in December, 1966, and in July, entire generation."1 Many Americans had great difficulty 1967, revealed that 58 percent of the population could accepting the reality of the massive destruction wreaked tolerate such rallies and marches if they stayed peaceful, upon Viet Nam in the name of “freedom" (later, but that fully 40 percent did not believe that Americans “credibility"), and resisted the emerging national possessed even that freedom. Demonstrating, as Jerome realization that the Viet Nam war was not a "mistake" but Skolnick has pointed out, for such people, clearly meant a disastrous defeat. The legions ofantiwar protesters who something quite different than “writing to a congressman demonstrated from New York to California between the or speaking up at a town meeting."3 mid-1960s and the early 1970s had first told Americans When it became clear, by early 1968, that the that their country—one they liked to think of as the hope Johnson administration (and the Kennedy administration of the world, modem history's great democratic beacon before it) had consistently lied to the American public and peacemaker—was oppressing a weak, less-developed about the roots and prospects of the war,4 that public had people for little discernible reason. Later they insisted nowhere to go emotionally, torn as it was between a war that America was not “fighting Communism" but it had come to hate, a government that had betrayed its obstructing a colonized people's long-term independence trust and an antiwar movement which did not seem to struggle, and in the end many antiwar leaders were to love its country or wish it to succeed. The accompanying contend that America was fighting not to retain its domestic violence exemplified by the assassinations of “credibility" but to retain a small but valuable part of its leaders from Malcolm X to Robert Kennedy, bloody urban empire. Many in the antiwar movement announced— riots and the shooting of black students (notably at South some with the support of their parents—that they would Carolina State College at Orangeburg in 1968) had leave the country or go to jail to avoid . almost become a normal aspect of American life by the Some people were uncomfortable about the Viet end of the decade. The Kemer Commission warned of Nam war for another reason. They were used to winning further explosions in a seriously divided country. wars, going all-out for clear-cut victories. Why wasn’t By 1968, enough Americans had expressed their their government doing that in Viet Nam? Shipment upon opposition to the war by displaying support for Eugene shipment of troops and equipment went to Viet Nam as McCarthy and Robert Kennedy to knock the major the American military commitment to the South proponent of continued fighting. President Johnson, out Vietnamese government grew through the mid-1960s, of the Presidential race. In November. Richard Nixon was with little subsequent evidence of any real strengthening elected to succeed Johnson, on a pledge to get the country of the precarious positions of the various regimes in (justly and honorably, of course) out of Southeast Asia. Saigon. America’s allies generally failed to help; indeed, Nixon was also elected on a pledge to promote “law and some opposed the American position. All of this was very order.” He spoke, however, ofbringing the country together frustrating and. to a great degree, humiliating for many Americans. again and a nation weary of war and division accepted the idea with relief: no Sumimer-FaU, 1992 ViET INam G eneration VoluiME 4 NuiVlbER 5-4

It was as though in 1968 peace and national and the parking lot in the middle of the Kent State unity had been settled upon as the theme for the campus because as much a symbol of antiwar resistance next four years, and any events that failed to as the emerging tradition of holding annual commem­ carry out the theme were deprived of their orative rallies there. significance and were invisible. Somehow an Whether the Kent State administration did or did not image had been fixed in place, which mere events think about the ramifications of all this w hen it decided could not easily dislodge.5 during the early 1970s to build a gymnasium annex on part of the wooded hill and most of the practice field is The violence perpetrated by the Ohio National Guard open to speculation. What is certain is that, as soon as on the Kent State campus on May 4, 1970, occurred a the plans became known in the fall of 1976, they aroused year and a half after this mood settled over the country. protest from several student groups concerned about A population irritated through much of 1969 by rebellious appropriate commemoration of 1970. By May of 1977, students who “seemed intent on prolonging the hated when more general student awareness combined with a period of 'national division’ out of sheer perversity”6 feeling of University insensitivity to other commemorative appreciated neither Richard Nixon’s Cambodian invasion requests (such as canceling classes on May 4th or speech nor the campus explosions that followed it. The naming buildings after the four dead students), a relaxed and reassuring language of the early Nixon remarkable degree of energy and resentment was ready administration had turned, by April. 1970, into the and waiting to be galvanized into action. President’s insistence that America must demonstrate its The result was the formation of the May 4 th Coalition, will and credibility to itself and the rest of the world, and the group which attempted over a five-month period to that participants in the campus antiwar movement could preserve the entire site of the Kent State confrontation. be characterized as “bums." The speech threw the nation Unfortunately, victory for the May4th Coalition—retention into a tailspin: of the May 4th site through relocation of the gymnasium annex—would almost certainly have required a change in Instead of the expected return of the “known and prevailing national attitudes about the Viet Nam war and familiar," the nation was experiencing a revival of those who opposed it. The nature of those attitudes has the alien and weird. In fact, by now the alien and already been detailed. The question is: What forces weird had prevailed for so many years that they produced such attitudes and what obstacles did the had almost become the known and familiar.7 Coalition face in 1977 while trying to combat them? The antiwar movement of the 1960s had to break The violence at Kent State which left four students through a web of circumstances, beliefs and dead and nine wounded, one seriously, was not. of itself assumptions—some already detailed—in order to convince then, unusual. What was unusual were the circumstances a majority of Americans that the war was mistaken or in which the violence took place, the white, middle-class wrong. The Left wing of the movement may eventually and student identities of the victims, and what was have made private (and sometimes public) common symbolized for the national consciousness by the blood cause with the National Liberation Front, the entity spilled in the centerof the campusofa previously obscure against whom the United States was actually fighting Midwestern state university. “Kent State" became the most of the time, but such identifications could rarely be most obvious national symbol of the decade of the publicly made because the “Viet Cong" were the “enemy." polarization, anger, guilt, bitterness, shame and confusion Therefore, the movement as a whole concentrated on produced by America's tragic and disastrous adventure persuading the public that its government was intervening in Viet Nam. wrongly and dangerously in a civil war or a war for For seven years after May 4, 1970, the nation lived national liberation, appealing to that part of the American with the knowledge that its ill-advised war in Southeast tradition which put Americans on the side of theoppressed Asia had finally caused deaths at home. For seven years, underdogs. Since the prevailing ideology taught Americans it tried to forget about Kent State, living as best as it could that war with Viet Nam must be endured to display with the broader knowledge (certain by April, 1975) that American will and credibility to the world against it had lost the war. Meanwhile, the question of Communist challenges, the movement had to persuade accountability for the deaths at Kent State was pursued them that this was not, in fact, what was at stake in on state and national levels, primarily by the American Vietnam—or that the deaths and destruction American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the United Methodist military might was causing there was too high a price to Church’s Board of Church and Society. At the same time pay to prove such things. The movement had to tiy to there emerged on the Kent State campus itself what Scott persuade the majority of Americans to stop thinking Bills and S. R. Thulin have called the “May 4th Movement,"8 about national honor in the context of “winning" the war a concerted attempt by students and occasionally by in Viet Nam—or, at least, to re-define it. faculty members to keep the ideas, analyses, goals and In these senses, the antiwar movement was an memories of the antiwar movement and its dead in attempt to break through the hold of Cold War ideology circulation. Since part of the memory of 1970 remained on the majority of American minds. If the Viet Nam war in the physical location of the Guard-student can be seen in good part as an ideologically-based conflict confrontation—in the land on which the two groups had growing only indirectly out of actual material skirmished and on which the blood of thirteen students circumstances, the antiwar movement can likewise be was later shed—the wooded hill, the football practice field seen as an attempt on the ideological plane to change a

111 Summer-FaII, 1992 ViET Naim G eneration VoIume 4 NuiVlbER J-4 material situation. Borrowing from the political and negotiate a settlement in Viet Nam and get out to fight social writings of the Italian Leftist Antonio Gramsci, the more crucial battles elsewhere and maintain tranquillity efforts of the antiwar movement can be characterized as at home. Therefore, it can be argued that the change in a struggle to counter dominant class ideology (“ideological official Viet Nam policy from commitment and escalation hegemony") by means of a “war of position," an extended to de-escalation and withdrawal constituted only a partial series of challenges to prevailing thought and the victory for those antiwar forces which had tried to get presentation of alternative perceptions of reality.9 Americans to face and analyze what was going on in The question then becomes to what extent this war America’s name in Viet Nam. Additionally, neither the of position was perceived as such by either the belligerents language nor the procedure eventually used to withdraw or the public, to what extent it triumphed and to what lent themselves easily to challenges of corporate liberalism. extent its pressures brought about a change in war plans Since both American tradition and dominant thought or a change in the perceptions of the world that had frowned upon—indeed forbade—defeat, words and a caused the war in the first place. This question is program had to be found which would redefine the war important because it seeks to discover the extent of rather simply as something in which the country ought counter-cultural penetration to be credited to this kind of no longer to be involved. Then it could end its commitment struggle during the Viet Nam war era. with a minimal amount of revelations or humiliation.13 The evidence suggests that the gradual change of Richard Nixon was quite successful in these respects attitude toward the war on the part of influential media, with his “Vietnamization" program. Changes were made politically influential intellectuals, mainstream political in official policy, but only within the confines of continued leaders from both parties, Wall Street corporate executives tranquillity at home and a more selective pursuit of Cold and even some Pentagon officials that filtered through to War objectives abroad. The new policy was popular the public's consciousness between the fall of 1967 and because it promised to reduce American physical the spring of 1968 was partly but not wholly brought involvement (allowing the burden of the war's unchanged about by the ideological challenge presented by the objectives and casualties to be shifted to the nonwhite antiwar movement. The change was also produced by the Vietnamese) without rejecting any of the culturally- progress (or lack of it) of the war itself and by a growing dominant assumptions that had been used for most of a realization that further pursuit of an elusive victory in decade to persuade Americans that the warwas necessary Viet Nam was likely to exact an unacceptable price in and justified.14 The Cold War was still alive. The nation social and political terms potentially threatening to the still had to maintain its credibility in the face of Soviet and rule in the nation of what might be called "corporate Chinese provocations—including provocations from liberalism."10 "proxies" like the Hanoi-supported National Liberation The crisis created by the Viet Nam war can be viewed, Front. It still had obligations to itself and the Free World in Gramscian terms, as a "crisis of the modem state," one to maintain noncommunist regimes like South Viet Nam's which occurs when the dominating class is largely and to contain communist aggression. “stripped of its spiritual prestige and power...."11 One might So Americans could feel pleased when the troops have thought that such a crisis of confidence would began to come home. So could influential "leaders." If create ideal opportunities for the antiwar movement (and Vietnamization worked, they would have extracted the Left in general) to gain a serious audience for its themselves from the Viet Nam morass with minimal interpretations from intellectuals and the public. The ideological losses. erosion of public and academic confidence in official The Cambodian invasion speech of April 30, 1970, authority and ideas caused by the course of events in Viet and its often-violent aftermath pulled the nation out of its Nam created only the possibility for such a presentation, induced complacency. Americans had thought the war however. A degree of success would certainly be achieved was ending, that they would not have to think about it if the war and its nature could be “demystified" before the any more. They had also thought the campuses were nation—if the nation could at least detach itself from Cold going to settle down at last, and stop raising so many War myths and view the conflict clearly. The antiwar alien, uncomfortable questions. The sequence of events movement was to discover in the process of making this that began following Nixon's speech and ending May 4th effort, though, just how pervasive and entrenched with the thirteen casualties at Kent State threatened to "corporate liberalism" was in American society.12 Debate eliminate that supposition. Not only did the speech about the propriety of the Viet Nam war was taking place thrust the war and all its complications back into the overwhelmingly within these boundaries. minds of the majority, but the violence at Kent State The turning point reached on the war in the thinking raised such controversial questions as the legitimacy of of official Washington by 1968 was produced by several civil disobedience, the relative value of properly versus factors. One was the impact of the antiwar movement. human life, and the acceptable extent of civil liberties. Another was a general desire to withdraw from a chronic Many Americans seemed to be of the opinion, following cycle of death and destruction which was failing to the shootings, that those who had “rioted" in downtown accomplish original war objectives while causing Kent the night of May 1 and had burned down a World unprecedented division at home. Still another was the War II barracks on campus (which was being used as a change of heart about the war by a substantial sector of ROTC building) on the night of May 2 (behavior supposedly the nation's elite. These people, from Wall Street linked in both cases to student antiwar sentiment) should investment bankers to politicians like Senator Robert have been prevented from holding an antiwar, anti- Kennedy, came to feel that the United States had better National Guard rally on the Kent State campus on May 4.

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The fact that different groups of people were involved in use philosophy of Kent State University. It was more than varying, not constant degrees throughout the weekend, an effort to question the University's commitment to that the National Guard was already on its way to Kent student involvement in University decision-making. It when the ROTC building was set afire, that the cause of was, in a broader sense, a struggle to counter culturally- the fire was open to question, and that the May 4th rally dominant versions of the history and nature of the Viet Itself was a peaceful extension of a May Day anti- Nam war era. If one believed that the four students who Cambodian invasion demonstration until the Guardsmen died at Kent State should be honored as representatives tried to disperse the crowd all got lost in the whirlwind of of the conscience of the nation to purge the country of its media distortions and public turmoil that followed the guilt and its accumulation of officially-imposed shootings. Local, state and national officials seemed both assumptions, one made an effort to preserve the area of to agree with and encourage the collective evaluation that the shootings that year—or, at least, expressed sympathy a dozen store windows and a crumbling, oversized campus with the struggle. If one believed that Viet Nam could have shed were more important and more worthy of public been retained for the Free World, that the Kent State concern and protection than the right to peaceably casualties had been rioters who had deserved their fate, assemble pr the rights of four young Kent students to live. or even that the events of the day had been a tragedy The nation had not cared particularly about the ultimately the responsibility of no one. one saw no reason shootings of black students at Orangeburg two years to honor anything connected with 1970, or to preserve before. It cared equally little about the shootings at either its physical or symbolic memory. Jackson State ten days after the carnage of May 4th. But Both sides involved in the gym struggle of 1977 (and Kent State had, after all, involved materially comfortable various groups and individuals caught in between) saw it white students and it involved a culturally unacceptable as a larger quarrel than it might first have appeared to be. reaction toawar the nation was tryingto forget. Therefore, Individuals involved on both sides as partisans recognized the conjunction of limited traditional assumptions with what the significance might be of building—or not a sort of collective war trauma suggested that “Kent building— a structure on part of the Kent State battlefield State" was to remain a thorn in the nation’s side.15 of 1970. In this sense, the gym struggle was not only an Until 1970, white students on middle-class campuses attempt to keep a historic site clear, but an effort to raise had been able to function with a degree of cultural and once again the challenges to official reasoning about the political freedom unknown in other settings around the wars abroad and at home during the Viet Nam era— country. Much of their behavior was neither understood official reasoning still largely accepted by the public even nor approved of by other, more constricted Americans. if largely abandoned by 1977 by significant portions of When the shootings at Kent State occurred, some the media, the academic and even the political Americans were appalled to see that the repressive hand communities. The May 4th Coalition spent five months in of the government had reached beyond its usual racial 1977 waging what Gramsei would have called a “war of and occupational targets to new victims, but many more position," a battle to counter on a cultural and ideological seemed pleased and reassured that the incident showed front beliefs and assumptions imposed upon and then that no spoiled young intellectual upstart was beyond the accepted by the American public concerning the Viet reach ofRichard Nixon's “lawand order." Maybe President Nam war era through the agency of public diffusion. Johnson had lied to the nation about the war, but official What, then, of the course of this struggle? judgment ought usually to be respected. Perhaps the invasion of Cambodia had not been a good idea, but The May 4th Coalition was bom during an all-night rioting and burning down buildings to protect it were occupation of the Kent State University Administration irresponsible, immoral, outrageous, and generally un- Building on May 4-5, 1977. The occupation followed the American activities. seventh annual commemorative May 4th rally, during The circumstances that produced “Kent State," 1970, which several speakers had urged that the crowd do arose from a maze of contradictions and long-term something tangible to protest the states plans of the economic, political and ideological problems of national Administration and the Board ofTrustees to construct a scope. Since there were no visible alternatives to such gymnasium annex on part of the site of the 1970 contradictions available, the nation tried to forget about confrontation. The University always insisted that the Kent State as quickly as possible. It felt much of the same construction plans did not affect the integrity of the 1970 frustration, embarrassment, shame and confusion about site because none of the casualties or fatalities had been the event that it did about the wider issue of the war. A standing on ground to be included in the annex. The national focus on Kent State would have brought back to Coalition insisted that technicality was not entirely true— the fore of the nation's consciousness all the questions of Dean Kahler, when wounded, had been standing on a the Viet Nam era about the nature of American society, section of the football practice field scheduled to be questions that really could not have been fully answered included in the construction and Jeffrey Miller, when unless prevalent Viet Nam era assumptions were pushed killed, had been standing in a roadway scheduled to aside. become part of an access road for the annex. In addition The struggle of the May 4lh Coalition during the to that, “the May 4lh site," for the Coalition, was larger spring, summer and fall of 1977 to preserve the physical than the site as defined by the University; while the location of the confrontation of 1970 was, thus, more University spoke of the site as little more than Prentice than a student effort to preserve a site of some local parking lot, where most of the blood of 1970 had actually interest or an environmental effort to question the land- been shed, the Coalition's May 4th site included the

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entire area on which the National Guard and Kent State 1977. This latter group may have been more Interested students had skirmished: in this case, the Commons, the than the militants in making sure that all views got aired parking lot, the football practice field behind the current at the nightly Coalition meetings at Tent City, but they gym and the wooded hill behind Taylor Hall from which were just as committed to a major acknowledgment by the Guard had fired. Whether the University really defined the University that the importance of 1970 needed to be the site narrowly or did so during 1977 only to suit its own honored (among other things) by leaving the May 4th site convenience—in rationalizing its construction plans, the alone. gap between University and Coalition site definitions President Olds seems to have found, on the other virtually guaranteed that the two sides would spend hand, a certain charm, even quaintness, about Tent City, much of 1977 simply talking past each other. just as did area reporters who came there to do stories The power of suggestion, at any rate, proved potent, about it and its occupants. There also must have been as a number of participants in the rally ended up that some reassurance to Olds in the earnestness of the evening in the Administration Building, refusing to leave settlers' commitments to maintain the grass, their nightly until they had a meeting with KSU President Glenn Olds. town meetings, and their rule banning smoking, alcohol Even after the meeting, however (which was civil but and drugs from the area. (One could also add, somewhat indecisive), the crowd was reluctant to leave and ultimately more cynically, that Olds could afford not to worry too decided to remain in the building while it organized itself much about the indefinite tenure of Tent City, since he into a group to continue and coordinate opposition to the planned to move to Alaska later in the summer to take up annex site, among other, lesser demands, like amnesty the Presidency of Alaska Methodist University.)18 for building occupants. During the two months of Tent City, the Coalition For the next week or so, the group discussed the experienced its greatest unity and impact. Yet even then, most appropriate and effective ways to save the May 4lh it was becoming evident that its support was wide but not site, as it defined it. Having come to a consensus as to deep—and also that factions were appearing within it what should and could be done—especially to make a whose activities were to prove counterproductive to powerful, nonviolent and effective public statement—the attaining its stated goals later in the summer. The Coalition made its move on May 12th. After attempting in factions ranged from militants who described the vain to convince the Board ofTrustees to change its mind disruptions of 1970 with patent historical falsity as a about the site location. Coalition members proceeded to “student-worker uprising." and who insisted that the the wooded hill in danger of destruction. There, they set University had deliberately chosen the annex site to up an indefinite sit-in and site expropriation with tents literally “cover up" the area and memory of the shootings, and other camping equipment, to last at least until such to liberals hoping that an annex stupidly or insensitively time as the Board of Trustees changed its mind and planned could be relocated before any of the Coalition's decided to build the annex elsewhere. They named the (or outside) radical troublemakers got any further with little settlement Tent City. their analyses and general pushiness. In between were a The Tent City period of the May 4th Coalition's life variety of socialists and anarchists (plus counter- was its longest and most successful, lasting for slightly culturalists) who more simply wanted the injustice of the over two months. During this period, the Coalition worked war and the shootings acknowledged and the beauty of from a physical base, and received its greatest sympathy the hill preserved, though a number of them also believed from the media, local and national. Although a few area that the University had planned the annex to cover part right-wingers wrote nasty letters to newspapers of the May 4th site deliberately. Militants like Canfora resuscitating old assertions of violence in 1970 from and Rambo have already been mentioned. Liberals student and non-student rioters and threatening tax included Dr. Dennis Carey, acting head of KSU's official action against the University if it failed to take action to 1970 memorial, the Center for Peaceful Change, and his stop the most recent disruptions,16 most people in the wife, Marie. What might be called “moderates" included area either failed to express opinions at all or somehow KSU students and alumni such as Bill Arthrell, Nancy indicated some degree of understanding of the Coalition's Grim and Jonathan Smuck. Philosophical differences position. Mostly, the public was silent, with columnists were often reflected in tactical struggles, as the emerging and editorial writers filling in the gap with combinations factions tried to outmaneuver each other in Coalition of real sympathy for the Coalition's position and more votes.19 complicated expressions of desire that something be The issue of Coalition support was just as serious. In done to settle the annex question before the questions the first place, education was carried out largely through and general level of disruption raised by the controversy media interviews. Coalition members such as Fatimah got too bothersome.17 Abdullah wondered if grassroots (door-to-door) efforts The Glenn Olds administration was not, on the one would be more effective and democratic, but this seems hand, at all happy about the presence of about 70 tents never to have been tried. It is only fair to note, of course, and perhaps 200 men, women and children on KSU’s that most current mainstream political campaigners also Blanket Hill. Nor was it happy about the publicity being rely almost entirely on media interviews and advertising generated, especially by such veterans of 1970 as Alan rather than personal campaigning to relay their messages Canfora (wounded in the wrist) and Greg Ram bo (a Young to the public. That only emphasizes, however, the problem Republican eyewitness to the shootings later radicalized ofsuperficial, if not sensational news being made available by them). Less militant but just as radical were leaders to the public as a substitute for more substantial like Nancy Grim, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of KSU in information.

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Tent City came to an end on July 12, 1977, as the way, apparently agreeing with the interpretation of the result of a court order. While the University had sought two Maoist groups which came to dominate the Coalition a simple injunction ordering the Coalition to dismantle during this period, the Revolutionary Student Brigade Tent City and vacate the site to allow annex construction (RSB) and the Communist Youth Organization (CYO). Yet to begin, the judge apparently felt that the Coalition’s it was not “mass activity"—on the part of the 200 or so case merited a hearing. Therefore, the Coalition was people in the Coalition or the mass of the public to whom ordered to vacate the area, but the judge also put the it never really spoke—that was responsible for the University under an order: to delay construction for ten Coalition's successes during this period, but legal action days until a full hearing could be held before him. by sympathetic lawyers and the efforts of local, state and This presented the Coalition with a dilemma. It tried federal politicians to negotiate in the Coalition's behalf. to decide, at a mass meeting the night of the court The intervention, following the July 12 arrests, of decision, whether to accept the order to abandon Tent White House aide Costanza could have been interpreted City and await the hearing or to insist on remaining there somewhat cynically as the effort of Jimmy Carter’s White until physically removed by police. While a sizable minority House to diffuse the controversy at Kent State before it felt that the Coalition should go along with the order and spread. The related effort to save the site by placing it on hope for the best at the hearing, the majority ultimately the National Register of Historic Sites, endorsed by voted to resist the order and make a stand on the hill. For Costanza, was nevertheless real, as was the effort made those people, retention of Tent City had clearly become by John Begala, Kent's state assemblyman, to get an more important than tactical considerations tied to the agreement from the Board of Trustees to seek funds from judge's possible future decisions.20 the Ohio legislature to move the annex about 40 feet Early on the morning of July 12,193 people, including downhill from its original location (the so-called “rotation" the entire Canfora family and the parents of 1970 fatality proposal). Little as such liberals as Costanza and Begala Sandy Scheuer, were peacefully led, dragged or carried may have liked the ultra-radical and increasingly anti­ down Blanket Hill to buses waiting to take them to the democratic turn of the Coalition during this period—not county jail for processing on contempt charges. While the to speak of its original analysis of the war era— (and arrests made national—even international—news and perhaps because of the former problem), they understood created a great deal of sympathy for the Coalition all the the reasons for the group's formation, sympathized with way to the White House, the fact was that Tent City was them, and tried to obtain a compromise that would at gone, the Coalition had lost its physical base and faced a least keep most of the 1970 site clear. very uncertain future. The fact that local Congressman Alas, even these attempts were to fail. The site, it John Seiberling, Senator Howard Metzenbaum and Jimmy seemed, could not be placed on the National Register Carter aide Midge Costanza expressed willingness to help because it was under fifty years old. (One might have the Coalition did not alter these realities. wondered, at the time, whether a waiver of this The ten days passed, the hearing came and went and requirement was possible and, if it was not. why so much the judge decided that there was no legal obstacle energy had been put into a useless effort.) The federal preventing the KSU Board of Trustees from locating the courts could find no Constitutional basis to support the annex as it saw fit. The Coalition's case was probably not Coalition's case against the University—whatever the helped by the fact that a number of members temporarily moral strength of it, it was not reflected in existing law— re-occupied the site during a rally held the weekend and the main judge involved, Federal District Judge before the hearing; there would be a third site foray Thomas Lamros, could get neither the Coalition nor the leading to a second mass arrest (of 62 people, in addition Trustee negotiating team to agree to some kind of to about a dozen in jail through arrest warrants for the compromise. Neither could John Begala get anywhere briefer action) the night before construction was due to with either side to even begin to tiy to obtain relocation begin. funds from the Legislature. TheTrustees insisted that the Early on a sultry morning in late July, earthmovers annex be constructed as planned and the Coalition team arrived at the annex construction site. There was no one insisted that it be moved completely away from the May present to block them and few to observe; most Coalition 4 th site. The other option presented by Begala, remodeling members were either asleep or still in jail and were not the old KSU lab school to accommodate the needs of the even aware that construction had formally begun. The annex, was attacked so violently by Coalition-supporting machines actually scraped turf unimpeded for several parents with children there that Begala was obliged to hours before a sudden court hearing on the Coalition's drop it quickly as a possibility.21 behalf engineered by William Kunstler at the federal level By mid-September, all avenues of appeal had been prompted a federal judge to issue an order delaying exhausted and all the Coalition had left was empty construction again. This decision was to lead to a series announcements about mass resistance being planned of negotiations, further hearings and appeals all the way when and if construction machinery actually arrived. to the U.S. Supreme Court that were to delay a real start Even at the high point of the gym struggle, only 193 of annex construction until mid-September. people—not thousands—had been willing to submit to One of the great ironies about the dominant rhetoric peaceful and probably safe arrest, raising questions as to of the Coalition throughout late July, August and early how many people could be expected for the more dangerous September was that it credited the advances of the task of blocking construction machinery. In the end, in struggle to mass activity. Even a few of the young, radical fact, no one did. One courageous member of KSU's lawyers working in the courts for the Coalition spoke this student government buried herself in the earth to block

115 Su m m er-FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration V oIume 4 NUMbCR ?-4 machinery already on the site from digging. (She was accountability for the deaths and injuries of 1970, not shortly pulled out after a close encounter with because of the economic and political ramifications of the decapitation.) Perhaps a dozen people attempted to chase event perceived by radicals, but from a deep sense that after the machinery as it came in the first full day of human rights on that occasion had been denied. construction. TWo or three dozen more watched helplessly Liberals and radicals came together in the May 4th on top of Blanket Hill as bulldozers ripped out trees to Movement, and more particularly in the May 4th Coalition clear the site for the building. On that day of final defeat during the gym struggle of 1977, as they had during the for the Coalition, neither the two largely imported Maoist 1960s to end the Viet Nam war. They shared the belief groups nor most of the original campus Coalition that there must be accountability for 1970 and that the leadership was actually present at the side to resist as May 4th site ought to remain intact as a historical they had long vowed they would. Neither were they busy reminder and as human memorial. on any door-to-door campaign, though some may have The small group of people which began the struggle been working on leaflets announcing the next Coalition against annex construction constituted a “critical mass" rally. But even if the Coalition had remained pragmatic which organized and mobilized support to preserve the and moderate, worked on intensive education and tried May 4th site. Different people had different reasons for to work with such friends as John Begala. it would joining both the critical mass and the Coalition, however. probably have lost its struggle: the revival of memory These reasons ranged from the broadly liberal belief that about the war and the shootings involved in its quest Kent State 1970 had been a tragedy and that the dead would still probably have proved too much for the public and injured should be memorialized to the radical belief and a stubborn Board of Trustees. Judging from letters that Kent State had been an example of suppression of to editors during that period, the Coalition was drawing opposition to imperialism. A good many radicals hoped little sympathy by then.22 that in the course of the struggle to save the site, the public would gradually see the ramifications of Viet Nam It does not often take large numbers of people to start and Kent State for American society and would become a movement, to conduct struggles. Sociologist Seymour ready both to accept and participate in radical action. Martin Lipset has written of a "critical mass," a human There were also those apolitical and countercultural activist equivalent of the atomic phenomenon, which sets people primarily interested in anarchism and environ­ off events that only later involve large numbers of people. mentalism who were opposed to the annex location This is hardly a reassuring theory for those who contend because the site was beautiful and/or because the that history is always made by the masses, but it seems unresponsiveness of the Trustees symbolized for them to be supported by the facts. Most people at most times the hierarchical and unaccountable nature of contemp­ simply lack the time and energy to give sustained effort orary American society, though political Coalition to political activity. Those who did have both time and members and nonanarchists also shared such concerns. energy are credited by Lipset in one of his studies of Such varied attitudes toward Coalition goals were bound 1960s campus radicalism for first having raised important to affect the strategy and tactics of the “critical mass" as social issues and then having drawn large numbers of it tried to mobilize mass support for annex relocation. students, primarily involved in classes and social activities, The struggle that developed within the Coalition at least temporarily into political life. between moderates and militants was in part a Thus, a pattern emerges from a study of the antiwar disagreement over the tactics most appropriate for the and New Left activity of the 1960s, the crisis of 1970 and mobilization of mass support and in part a struggle based the rise of the “May 4th Movement” at Kent State on different goals. UntilJuly 12, such differences presented culminating in the May 4th Coalition-led gym struggle of no major problems for the Coalition, even the marathon 1977. Over a period of perhaps twelve years, relatively arrest debate ending in a display of unity. Once removed small groups of people brought issues to the attention of from its physical and community base at Tent City, the majority. however, the Coalition was bound to encounter more Many 1960s antiwar activists came to believe that trouble holding itself together. This problem was only the Viet Nam war was not a mistake but a deliberate exacerbated by the rise of the Coalition’s Maoist bloc, the attempt by a loosely-knit but powerful coalition that evident refusal of the public to be influenced by the calls controlled the U.S. to retain a small but highly-regarded from the White House, some politicians and the media for partofitsempire, fueled by Cold War ideology. Itfollowed, compromise, and by the sheer stubbornness of the Board then, that the real cause of the had ofTrustees. (The degree of official response to the Coalition been the desire of the Nixon administration to suppress may have made the public wonder why the group domestic objections to its Viet Nam policy so that it could increasingly proclaimed the existence of a closed system.) have more of a chance of successfully retaining Viet Nam If the Coalition had only had to grapple with the problem for the capitalist world. of convincing the liberal community of the justice of its Many in the antiwar and May 4th movements drew case, the gym struggle of 1977 might well have ended with such conclusions: others did not. The antiwar movement annex relocation. But the Coalition was confronted with of the 1960s was a broad and diverse coalition and many apathy and often hostility in the public which it lacked in it could agree that the war in Viet Nam was illegal and the means to overcome during the controversy. immoral without seeing it as a struggle to save Viet Nam Neither the antiwar movement nor the “May 4th for the capitalist world. For seven years after the Kent Movement," the most important component of which was State shootings, many liberals, for instance, struggled for the May 4th Coalition of 1977, was successful in gaining

116 S u m m e r -F ail, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration VolUME 4 NuMbER 5-4 public acceptance of radical interpretations of the Viet sort of successful war of position that would have gained Nam war or May 4, 1970. The antiwar movement did public acceptance of the radical view of both the Viet Nam succeed in gaining a public support for a liberal war and Kent State 1970, partly because the public only interpretation of the war, however, a feat which the more agreed with the liberal interpretation of the Vietnam War narrowly-based Coalition was unable to match. Certainly (and largely disagreed with the liberal interpretation of if the Coalition was not going to persuade the public that 1970) and par tly because the common ground on which the Kent State shootings needed to be memorialized by Coalition leaders and sympathetic liberals approached saving the site—even with the help of the media—it was the public on the annex question was too superficial to not going to succeed even to the extent that the antiwar lend itself to some kind of ideological breakthrough. movement had. Yet the success of the antiwar movement The May 4th Coalition lost its battle to preserve the on only a liberal level caused part of the Coalition's site of the Guard-student confrontation at Kent State of problems, just as the attempts of many of the leaders of May 4, 1970, essentially because it failed to make itself 1977 to operate only on a radical level created serious an efficient enough critical mass to engineer a successful difficulties for the Coalition. challenge of culturally-dominant assumptions and The very traditions and intelligence that told the assertions about what the Viet Nam war, the antiwar antiwar movement and some people in the May 4th movement and Kent State meant to the nation. The group Coalition at what levels they should speak to be made a considerable effort to accomplish this, however, comprehensible to the public worked against any basic and a remarkable number of influential Americans emphases on radical analyses. The more these groups responded to it on some level, even if the public at large were able to communicate the existence of certain did not. The Coalition needed to create a sympathetic problems in comprehensible, everyday terms, the less counterculture to win its battle; the efforts to create one likely it became that fundamental, thus-far largely alien after 1970 and during the Tent City phase of the gym and incomprehensible explanations would emerge. The struggle were too small-scale to help in the end. very willingness of a number of influential liberals within The Coalition did bring back before the public the the political, academic, and journalistic communities to issues of Viet Nam and Kent State 1970—even if that respond, for instance, to the issue of the annex site in public failed to respond to the issues. It set an example 1977, whether it was presented by Coalition moderates of activism in the midst of the apathetic 1970s. The or militants, discouraged the acceptance of radical publicity it helped to generate for the uncompleted story arguments made by the Coalition as a whole that the site of Kent State may well have influenced the Sixth Circuit decision was the result of a plot engineered by a closed, Court of Appeals in its decision to order a new trial for conspiracy-prone system to suppress memories and Kraus v. Rhodes— one which ended in an out-of-court insult the dead. settlement in 1979, at least providing the May 4th Media figures, liberal academics, and some politicians families with compensation and an apology from the had gained enough perspective on the Viet Nam era by state. The energy and commitment of the Coalition’s legal 1977 to have some sympathy with the Coalition’s position. collective set an example for the May 4th Movement, even It was the public that seemed unwilling to grapple with if its words and behaviors were often contradictory. And the issues of the Viet Nam war and Kent State 1970/ the experience gained during the course of the gym 1977. The three mechanisms by which public sentiment struggle by the more thoughtful men and women of the could be gauged—letters to editors, letters to legislators May 4th Coalition was bound to guide them later in other, and polls—showed a consistent majority arrayed against broader struggles for social justice and change. the Coalition. The hostility became more obvious as the summer progressed, options narrowed and the Coalition N o te s moved left. Much of the public apparently felt threatened 1 Thomas Powers, T h e W ar at Home: Vietnam and the by the activities of the Coalition and also by the prospect American People, 1964-1968 (New York: Grossman) 1973: of revival of painful and alien history which it wished to xviii, xix. ignore or forget. 2 Ibid.: 141. So as the public exercised its informal vole by 3 New York Times, 28 Nov 1965, as quoted in Powers: 92. 1 Harris Poll, 20 Jun 1968, as cited in Jerom e H. Skolnick, T h e pressure to leave the annex where it was, legislature and Politics of Protest (New York: Simon and Schuster) 1969: 23. government seem to have decided that it would be too Skolnick’s evaluation of the poll ean be found on pages 22-23. risky to try to circumvent the expressed will of the 5 For varied recountings of official deceptions about Viet Nam, Trustees, and the Board got its annex where it wanted it. see Frances Fitzgerald, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnam ese and One could call this outcome an exercise in democracy, if the Americans in Vietnam (New York: Vintage) 1972; David the use of that term did not presuppose independent llalberstam, The Making of a Quagmire (New York: Random thought and evaluation as the necessary grounding for House) 1964: Townsend lloopes. The Limits of Intervention votes. (New York: David McKay) 1969; Thom as Powers, op. cit.; Herbert Y. Sehandler, The Unmaking o f a President: Lyndon Johnson In 1977, the May 4th Coalition took advantage of the and Vietnam (Princeton University Press) 1977; and Jonathan contradictions it encountered—the sympathy of liberals, S c h e ll, The Time o f Illusion (New York: Vintage) 1975. Related the media, academicians, polit icians and j udicial figures— revelations concerning the doctoring of Viet Nam war statistics to successfully delay for almost two and a half months the by the Pentagon—despite the protests of the CIA—were made onset of construction. The Coalition succeeded in these during Mike Wallace's The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam delaying tactics without being heard seriously by the D e c e p t io n (CBS Reports, 23 Jan 1982). public, however. Nor was the Coalition able to wage the c S c h e ll, op. cit.: 5 0.

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7 Ibid.: 3 5. 8 Ibid.: 7 3. has several examples of the ways in which Left-wing groups 9 See Thom as D. Matijasic and Scott Bills. “The People United: occasionally fail to distinguish between radicalismand militancy. ATcntative Com m entary on the Kent State Struggle. 1977," L e f t 33 For background on the site study and Costanza, author's interview with John Adams, 24 Nov 1981. On Ohio voters' Review 2: l (Fall, 1977): 10-35: and S.R. Thulin, "Introduction: May 4. 1980," in Scott Bills, cd., Kent State: Ten Years After attitudes, also see background from Adams interview. Analysis (Kent, OH: Kent Left Studies Forum) 1980: 1-2. This booklet was ofjudicial attitudes is drawn from author's interviews with Chris a special issue of Left Review 4:2 (Spring, 1980). Stanley and Terry Gilbert (18 Aug 1981), Carter Dodge (18 Aug 10 Gramsci presents his conception of the "war of position" in 1981) and David Luban (1 Nov 1981). Asa matter of fact, the tiny "State and Civil Society," Selections from the Prison Spartacus Youth League condemned the Coalition for having N o te b o o k s , cd. and trans., Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell resorted to any kind o f court action as a sellout to capitalists. Smith (New York: International Publishers) 1971: 238-239. Chris Stanley (interview) emphasized that the Coalition, not lawyers, should have been primary during the gym struggle, in Chantal Mouffe elaborates upon it in "Hegem ony and Ideology in terms of grassroots organizing work. Also see Akron B e a c o n Gramsci.' in Chantal Mouffe, ed., Gramsci and Marxist J o u r n a l, Cleveland P r e s s , Cleveland Plain Dealer, Record- T h e o r y (London: Routlcdgc & Kegan, Paul) 1979: 198. Gramsci C o u r ie r , observes in “The Modern Prince," Selections...: 184, th a t 19 Aug 1977. For University School proposal, see Record-Courier, Beacon Journal, historical crises producing wars o f position forthe triumph of an 23-25 Aug 1977; Akron Plain Dealer, alternative (socialist) ideology are by no means always economic Cleveland 25 Aug 1977. All interviews from author's dissertation. We Shall Not Be Moved: A Study o f the and may emerge from a number of other circumstances. Carl M ay 4 th Coalition and the Kent State University Gymnasium B o g g s , in Gram sci's Marxism (London: Pluto Press) 1976, gives Controversy of 1977 a good summary of the conditions and processes Gramsci saw (Purdue University, 1982). as necessary for the production of a "war of position" and the 34 A summary of this information was relayed to the author by successful construction of a "counter-hegem onic" ideology and an aide to Ohio State Representative Michael Stinziano during a visit to Kent in mid-August of 1977. Later letters to newspaper culture on pages 40-41, 60. R e c o r d - 11 Gram sci expresses the opinion, in "Am ericanism and Fordism," editors like the one from Joseph T. Gajdos to the C o u r ie r Selections...: 285-286, that Am erican culture has had so little (5 Oct 1977) contained similar amounts of hostility. carryover from aspects of the European past (like feudalism), Gajdos’ letter was headlined, “Horsewhip Kent gym protesters." op. cit., that there has been nothing to block the developm ent o f pervasive 35 Upset, especially pages xiv-xvi. Similar focusing on the capitalist habits and ideology. Boggs, op. cit., expands on this role of what might be called (with apologies to David Halberstam) theory when he asserts (51) that liberalism and "corporate "the best and the brightest" appears in Kirkpatrick Sale, SD S Fire in the rationality" are so tied together in Am erican minds and behavior (New York: Random House) 1973, and Milton Viorst, Streets: A m erica in the 1960s that both are aspects of "Americanism." This has meant that (New York: Simon and Schuster) class conflicts taking political forms in Europe are non-political 1979. in the United states: 52. 17 B o g g s , op. cit, quoting Gramsci: 41: Gramsci, “State and Civil S o c ie ty ," Selections....: 2 7 5 -2 7 6 . 13 B o g g s , op. cit., quoting Gramsci: 40-41: Gramsci, "State and Civil Society," Selections....: 2 5 . 14 Pow ers, op. cit. 15 Gram sci describes the elem ent of danger present in "a general crisis o f the State" (applied in this study to Viet Nam), in which disorganization am ong classes and a struggle by the dominant class to regain its control over events are to be expected ("State a n d C iv il S o c ie ty ," Selections....: 210-221). The dom inant class, he says, norm ally reorganizes faster than its opponents, switches men and policies and regains its dominant role— albeit with some sacrifice. This was clearly the case in 1967 and 1968. 16 This idea em erges to som e extent in J. Anthony Lukas, D o n 't Shoot: W eAre Your Children (New York: Random House) 1971. For a more extensive exploration of the concept, see author's T h e Legacy of 1970," in Bills, ed., op. cit.: 2 6 -2 8 . 17 Letter from Richard Larlham to Kent-Ravenna R e c o r d - C o u r ie r (13 Jun 1977). 18 See Kent-Ravenna Record-Courier (1 4 , 17 J u n 1977). 19 S e e Daily Kent Stater (3 Jun 197). 30 This information was taken from interviews conducted by Miriam R. Jackson with Nancy Grim (13 Mar 1981); Dave Perusck(2 May 1981): JonathanSm uck (7Jan 1981)and Marie Carey (21 May 1981). 31 Interview conducted by Miriam R. Jackson with Fatimah Abdullah (Eve Rosen Morris), 18-19 Aug 1981. 33 Author's recollections of arguments. The author argued a g a in s t im m e d ia te a r re s t. S e e Chronicle o f Higher Education. (18Jul 1977), foranaccountof the meeting. Also see Todd Gitlin, The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left (Berkeley: University of California Press) 1980. Chapter Four ("Organizational Crisis, 1965") has a helpful description o f the "Old Guard" conflict with "Prairie Power." Chapter Six ("Inflating Rhetoric and Militancy")

118 S t a t es o f S h o ck

P o e t r y by J a m e s S co fiE ld By David J. DeRose, Theater Studies, Yale, New Haven, CT 06520

Portions of this essay appear in DeRose’s forthcoming Nightmare book, Sam Shepard (New York: TwaynePublishers, 1992), and are used with the permission o f the publisher. Khe Sanh 24 January 1968 When it was announced a little over a year ago that a new A tear runs down the lamp shade Sam Shepard play. States o f Shock, would be opening dropped at New York City’s American Place Theatre, critical circles from the tip of his bayonet, I can see began to buzz in anticipation. Shepard, while appearing canvas flapping, bodies rapping as a leading man in several feature films over the last half man, oh man, some rout, some rout dozen years, had not opened a new play since 1985. to take home—tongues in gentlemen; Anticipation grew even greater when it was announced red white and blue, zippers up! that States o f Shock would star John Malkovich, who yes, yes, lights out. first came to national attention playing the desert drifter, Lee, in Shepard’s 1980 stage comedy. True W est When States of Shock did open in May o f 1991, Lost critical and popular response was mixed. The play was not what audiences or reviewers anticipated from the For Christopher Ricks Pulitzer prize winning playwright who had authored a string of five powerful family dramas between 1976 and As night moves off his splintered face, silence 1985. The overwhelming consensus among critics and lies on silence; the becoming light blinds him: theatergoers was that the play seemed like a regression He hears canvas flapping—with no will to rise, on Shepard’s part, a throwback to his slap-dash the sergeant's order experimentalism of the late 1960s. Even more perplexing shrapnel in his throat, to the public was the fact that the play was clearly written he rests, recoilless on the balk, his eyes as a bitter outcry against America’s involvement in the on a seething Lamp aged to a stony violence. Persian Gulf. New York Times critic Frank Rich voiced On the sixth day of January, a canopy the cynical, pseudo-cosmopolitan reaction of many New of clouds building, dispersing above her; Yorkers when he patronizingly suggested that the play snow nipped robins, their breasts pushed high was written “with the earnest—one might even say to the low winter sun—broke their thin song. quaint—conviction that the stage is still an effective And she, his mother, raged at the spitting sky, platform for political dissent and mobilizing public her son now a rhapsody of memory. opinion.“ Rich further suggested that Shepard must have He hears a bird scratching for his worm, and knows been “hibernating since...the Vietnam era.” the skipping heart as his own; a liquid sound In one respect. Rich is right: States of Shock is like heaving slush, the harrowed brine of blood undoubtedly a Viet Nam era play. But, perhaps if Rich foams from his black-purple head; something moves had chosen to explore the “Viet Nam era" qualities o f the his boots—and dogs drink from his chest; mud play a bit further, rather than quickly criticize them as and shadows splashing, he cries and he cries then goes. inappropriate to the chic and skeptical 1990s, he might The breath o f cherry blossoms pink in the air. have expressed the matter in a less narrow-minded, more she sits on her porch, her heart a space of stone, precise fashion: States of Shock is an anti-war play consuming the civil nakedness of the flowers. written by a member of the Viet Nam generation from the She seems a face without eyes or mouth; silence cultural perspective of the Viet Nam war era. The style lies on silence, as time granulates the hours. and politics of the play—rather than an unintentional The fallen are buried between the crib and the candle. regression on Shepard’s part—seem quite consciously reminiscent of the drama of the Viet Nam era, as if to ask the obvious question that the media during the Gulf War James Scofield, 3303 Pear St., SE, Olympia, WA 98501 either refused to ask or was not allowed to ask: namely, doesn't anybody here remember Viet Nam? Didn’t we learn anything twenty years ago? States of Shock condemns both the American government’s military invasion of Iraq in February of 1991 and. more notably, the compliant and complacent reaction of the American public to that invasion and to the manner in which it was mass-marketed by our leaders. States of Shock is a play written in the style of

119 S u m m e r -Fa U, 1992 ViET Naim G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuiVlbER >-4 the Viet Nam era as a wake-up call to the Viet Nam before symbolic representatives of the American public, generation which seemed so appallingly silent during the suggests a battle between those fathers who make war invasion of Iraq. and those sons who must do battle; between the But States of Shock is more than an angry political patriarchal, pre-Viet Nam myths of a righteous American tract: it is a fluid, dreamlike event of hypnotic, archetypal military and the shattered, post-Viet Nam realities of images, as full of visual poetry as it is of current politics. young men killed and traumatized in a costly and paranoid Reminiscent of Shepard's hallucinatory plays from the war of expansionism. The gas masks and sirens which late 1960s, States of Shock is more concerned with appear late in the play also make it clear that these two expressing a highly personalized state of traumatized men represent George Bush's America, attempting to flex consciousness—what Shepard calls a “shock state"— its global muscle in the Persian Gulf, and the than with telling a story. And the “shock state" Shepard unquestioning soldiers who participated in that lop­ chooses to express in States of Shock ties it even more sided war of rampant destruction. Fathers (and the closely to the Viet Nam generation and to the legacy of the governments theysupport and represent), Shepard seems post-Viet Nam era in America. to be saying, will always be struggling to perpetuate their But, first let me backtrack a bit. Early in 1991, Sam own patriarchal myths: sons will always be called, Shepard was in New York City working with Joseph unwittingly or unwillingly, to serve their fathers' Chaikin on The War in Heaven (Angel's Monologue). a unwholesome ends. poetic monologue about an angel who dies on the day he In States o f Shock, the Colonel publicly claims that is born and who. drifting aimlessly in the afterlife, has lost Stubbs is a war hero, a valiant soldier who attempted to all sense of personal order and destiny. The quality of save the life of the Colonel's son by putting his own body existence the angel recounts is best described in a letter between that son and an incoming enemy missile. As the Shepard wrote to Chaikin in October of 1983. In that Colonel tells it, the missile went straight through Stubbs letter, Shepard told Chaikin that he had been pondering and killed his unfortunate son anyway. Stubbs, “the the idea of being “lost," of “one's identity being shattered lucky one," has lived to tell the tale. The Colonel is under severe personal circumstances—in a state of crisis particularly obsessed with having Stubbs recount for where everything that I've previously identified with in him the precise circumstances leading to the death of his myself suddenly falls away." Shepard suggested that one son. He uses toy soldiers, plastic tanks and planes, as might call this traumatized condition a "shock stale." He well as silverware and condiments from the restaurant further proposed to focus not on the shock itself, but on booth at which he and Stubbs sit, to recreate the exact the “resulting emptiness oraloneness": that is. not on the sequence of events. There is, in his intensity, an obsessive trauma, but on the post-traumatic condition. need to both objectify and validate his son's death, to set When Shepard and Chaikin joined forces in 1991 to forth the facts in precise military terms which will clear rework The War in Heaven for its New York premiere, his son of any wrong-doing by heroicizing Stubbs's the political climate in the United States had added a new battlefield gallantly and ignoring his ongoing tragedy. dimension to their collaboration. With American troops Stubbs's recollection of events is somewhat different massed in the Persian Gulf, about to invade Iraq, the from the Colonel’s attempted recreation. He is not angel's voice took on a new political tone for both Chaikin interested in the events leading up to his life-altering and Shepard. The sense of personal loss and of emptiness trauma: he wants to discuss the trauma itself and the was no longer a purely spiritual or metaphysical state, horrendous aftermath—the pain, the emotions, the but one which spoke as well for all of postmodern, post- personal ramifications, and the subsequent dissolution Viet Nam America, suddenly at war again. The result was of the world as he once knew it. Partially paralyzed and not only a newly inspired reading of The War in Heaven confined to a wheelchair, Stubbs cautiously suggests on Chaikin's part, but a new play on Shepard's part. that he is, in fact, the Colonel's son. and that he was States of Shock, which opened only weeks after Chaikin's running from battle, screaming his father’s name, when performances ended. he was struck down by friendly fire. In the words of the States of Shock is, on its most obvious level, a angel from The War in Heaven, Stubbs once felt he “had confrontation between a father-figure and a disinherited a mission," that he was “part of something." But all that son. The father, played by John Malkovich and known disappeared in battle. Betrayed by the patriarchal myths only as the Colonel, is costumed in bits and pieces of which led him to war, fired upon and abandoned by his historical uniforms, military decorations, and combat countrymen, Stubbs is ultimately denied his own identity gear from various American wars. He is an amalgam of by a father who will no longer acknowledge his kinship. the archetypal military man: a firm believer in the noble The best way," screams Stubbs in bitter irony, “is to kill myths of war which men like himself have served to all the sons!" —suggesting that from the onset of history perpetuate. Bored with peace, he is eager to see an fathers have fertilized the land with the blood of their America always at war: he regularly raises his glass in a sons. toast to the enemy who has made the present (unnamed) Stubbs's war experience has left him, in his own war possible. "Without the enemy,” he frequently words, "eighty per cent mutilated," dead and rotting from proclaims, “we're nothing." The Colonel’s companion, the inside out. He has also been left spiritually, emotionally Stubbs, is the disabled veteran of that unnamed war. He and, quite literally, impotent. “My thing hangs like dead is a Christ-like figure of frail martyrdom, unimposingand meat!" he screams repeatedly during the play, as if to unheroic, who has been technologically resurrected after overcome his father's desire (and the American public's) survivinga direct artillery hit. Their confrontation, enacted to silence him. Stubbs's physical and emotional mutilation

120 S u m m e r -F aII, 1992 ViET INam G eneration V oIuiwe 4 NuivibER 5-4 is graphically manifest in a wound which he regularly time startling in their ability to carry profound meaning. reveals to the audience and to the other characters on The scenic elements, for instance, are minimal: the set is stage. If. as Shepard has said of his earliest plays, he supposedly a "family restaurant" (as we are reminded started with a single image and created his play around repeatedly during the play), but it is more like the that image, then States of Shock was undoubtedly dreamscape of such a restaurant, consisting of a few created around the image of Stubbs, slumped sideways isolated properties placed on a bare stage in front of a in his wheelchair, tugging his sweatshirt up around his large white cyclorama. During moments of intense neck to reveal a bulbous red scar, the size of a softball, emotion, or extended descriptions ofbattle, that cyclorama through the middle of his chest. This startling image, is illuminated from behind with bursts of light, color, and usually accompanied in the play by a shrill blast on the the stylized images of war. Beyond the cyclorama, two whistle Stubbs wears around his neck, speaks simply percussionists underscore such moments with intense and eloquently of the physical devastation and emotional rhythmic drumming and the stylized sounds of a battle in havoc wreaked upon those who go to war. those who die, progress. and those who return “mutilated" to the families which One of the most singular visual images of the play is sent them off to fight. Stubbs is the image of inglorious the presence on stage throughout the action of an elderly, war and its brutal aftermath, known to Shepard’s seemingly affluent couple dressed from head to foot in generation—the Viet Nam generation—but carefully white. They sit at a table, also white, waiting for a long avoided by the media coverage of the Persian GulfWar. As overdue order ofclam chowder. Detached and unaffected, if to remedy that myopic media coverage and to remind they are anemic white America, watching unmoved as Americans of the physical and emotional reality behind father and son debate the terrible cost of war. More a the masculine myths of war, Stubbs frequently wheels symbolic scenic element than actual customers in a himself to the front edge of the stage, pulls up his shirt, restaurant, they are occasionally annoyed at the minor blasts on his whistle, and thrusts his wound in our faces. inconvenience which the war and its aftermath have Stubbs's wound is a classic Shepard manifestation caused them. They seem to take more interest in their of the postmodern condition, of the self unfixed from the missing clam chowder or in the shopping they could be world: it represents Stubbs's life, suddenly gutted of doing than in the issues at hand. Only when the Colonel everything from which he gathered meaning and a sense savagely beats Stubbs do they reveal shades of the of self. The trauma and betrayal of his war experience desperate impotence and bitterness buried beneath their have torn through him like a missile, stripping him not postures of indifference: as the beating progresses, the just of his name, but of the very core of his being. As white man masturbates under a napkin while the white Shepard wrote in his 1983 letter to Chaikin, he explores woman encourages the Colonel to act like a proper parent a character in whom "everything which [he's] previously and strike again. identified with [him]self suddenly falls away." Like the The only other character in the play is a black angel in The War in Heaven, adrift in the afterlife—and waitress named Glory Bee. Treated in a highly symbolic like so many members of the Viet Nam generation, fashion, her name reflects her belief in America as the whether traumatized veterans or disenfranchised patriots land of promise, while her status as a member of the like Shepard—Stubbs finds himself adrift in an America serving class, as a woman, and as a person of color, all that no longer exists for him. confirm the subservient role which such marginalized The existence of Stubbs's America—that is, of the groups must play in the power games of authoritarian personal and cultural mythology of an America which white men like the Colonel. It is Glory Bee, image of Stubbs carried to war in his heart and mind—is an issue America’s powerless majority, who must wait on the which surfaces several times in the play. Early in the Colonel and Stubbs, who must clean up when they make action, Stubbs recounts how in battle he wanted to have their boyish messes, and who must become the sexual a "feeling for home," for the familiar faces, objects, and object for whom and over whom they eventually fight. places which held his life together. But, according to Inspiteofitsoften heavy-handed political symbolism Stubbs, that “America had disappeared." Flashing back and its uneven tone and tempo. States of Shock's to the moment before the missile pierced his body, striking imagery and theatrical energy suggest not so Stubbs tells himself to fix a picture of home in his mind: much a regression on Shepard's part as a rejuvenation of he attempts to fill his head with images of station wagons, the impassioned (and sometimes reckless) theatrical cotton candy. Little Richard, the Mississippi River. "Don't genius who, in the 1960s. projected his inner emotional slip into doubt.” he yells aloud. But Stubbs obviously has landscapes onto the stages of off-off-Broadway. And slipped into doubt: America, home, and the personal Shepard's inner landscapes are the landscapes of mythological images he previously identified with himself postmodern, post-Viet Nam America. To my immediate and with the “imaginary homeland" have been literally recollection, the phrase “Viet Nam war" has never appeared and figuratively ripped from his being. in one of Shepard's plays. Yet, Shepard does not have to While a powerful and pertinent response to the write about the Viet Nam war in order to articulate the Persian Gulf war. States of Shock obviously transcends traumatic state of personal and national crisis which is the specific facts of that war, reaching a personal the legacy of the Viet Nam era and which we now call metaphysical plane, closer in poetic tone to the spiritual postmodern America. When the war veteran Stubbs world of The War in Heaven than to a "political'' play in wheels himself to the edge of the stage, pulling his any conventional sense. The images, like those of sweatshirt up around his neck to expose his gutted and Shepard's best work, are both simple and at the same empty self to us. all of Shepard's various traumatized

121 S u m m e r -F a II, 1992 ViET INa(vi G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuivibER 5-4 heroes from the 1960s and 1970s, in their various many fictional representations the war has become a manifestations of personal crisis, are immediately catch-all metaphor for U.S. political battles or pervasive recognizable as members of the Viet Nam generation. anxieties over gender and race, this version of it is so I am not suggesting that States o f Shock is a great extreme that it threatens to expose the self-indulgent play, or even a particularly good play. But 1 find it erection of heroic machismo committed by, say, Oliver refreshing that Shepard, who seemed to be entombing Stone or Francis Ford Coppola or even . himself in family dramas and naturalism, had the guts to Unii>ersal Soldier's social angst is very upfront. It take a risk, to use the theater as a political forum and literalizes the war's emotional detritus as assorted physical write what one of his early critics once called “a disposable traumas: this is nasty, over-the-top incoherence, played play" instead of another family masterpiece. Even if for visceral audience responses (as in. Ouch! Aarrggh!). Frank Rich thinks it quaint, Shepard was one of the few The initial handheld camera fast-trek through dark members of the American theater community to take a foliage leads to a stage-set village, carefully battered by stance on the Persian Gulf war. His reward was to be flames and rain. Van Damme, as an Army private named treated with absolutely no comprehension by the New Luc (his incorrigible accent is later “explained" by Cajun York press. origins), comes upon a hideous massacre enacted by a U.S. sergeant gone mondo Section 8. Scott (Lundgren) has killed all his own men and now stands delirious (with the requisite human ear necklace to signal his insanity), about to execute two terrified locals. Z ip lo ck E d Luc, who is short and only wants to “go home" (a mantra he repeats like Dorothy throughout the film), By Cynthia Fuchs tries to talk Scott down, but ends up having to gut him with a very large knife. Scott, in turn, blows Luc away He's the one who gives his body as a weapon of the war. with a big gun, and they fall—in slow motion and separate And without him all this killing can't go on. frames—their bodies bullet-riddled and spurting blood. He's the universal soldier and he really is to blame. Predictable as such ejaculatory excess is, this pre-credits His orders come from far away no more. sequence is also rather extraordinary: the stars, after all, They come from here and there and you and me. are dead before their names come up on the screen. And brothers can't you see? It gets worse. Or better, depending on your idiot-plot This is not the way we put the end to war. parameters. The military's recovery of the corpses is —Buffy St. Marie anything but routine. Indeed, the film offers a new theory about reported MIAs in Viet Nam. Scavenged and literally Told ya. put on ice. these soldiers are resurrected 25 years later You shoulda killed me last year. as“Unisols“: hard, programmable, and virtually unkillable —IceT motherfuckers. The problem of blame highlighted by Bufly St. Universal Soldier may be the most hysterical Viet Nam Marie's protest song (which gives the film its title) becomes war movie to hit mainstream screens yet. “Confused” monumentally vexed here. If Scott is evil incarnate and doesn't begin to cover it. An angry and often overwrought Luc is the designated hero, they are also constructed critique of official war management, this is also warriors who twice “give their bodies as weapons," first in conspicuous summertime trash entertainment, an action Viet Nam and then in the Unisol program. picture that can hardly wait to get from one flashy fireball That the bodies belong to the two top-seeded explosion to the next. It borrows from disparate sources Schwarzenegger wannabes, who are paid megabucks for (from Platoon to Robocop to Coming Home to The such activity, collapses arbitrary boundaries between Wizard ofOz) bravely, raucously, without a hint of grace machines and flesh, or performative and “actual" or shame. History schmistory. This flick is some serious masculinity. Willingness to perform becomes a relative shit. value. Predictably, the chief villains are stock, acted with Featuring the massively mounted one-two punch of verve: a conscienceless Army colonel (Ed O'Ross) and Jean-ClaudeVan DammeandDolphLundgren, Universal institutional medico-nerds perpetrate this horror (outside Soldier suggests—along with too many other popular of regular government auspices). films made in this country—that the United States’ Moral One: It's always the renegades, not the System, involvement in Viet Nam only incidentally affected that screw up. Vietnamese people. (And honestly, what possible room While the film’s ad campaign asserts that “The could there be for anyone else in frames filled with those future has a bad attitude," in fact the rest of this movie bulging pecs?) As exploitative hyperbole, this movie takes place in the "present day" U.S. Southwest. Clearly, seems an apt follow-up to producer Mario Kassar's science has nothing to do with this techno-wet-dream. At Rambo series: here the U.S. government continues to one point the head doc (Jerry Orbach, of all people) offers create and abandon its warriors in the service of a mighty an unpersuasive explanation that the bodies have been national self-image. “hyper-accelerated" to reverse death, the subsequent Opening in "Vietnam, 1969," the movie works all problem being that the steroid-enhanced Unisols run a available generic cliches, including the myopic notion little hot. So, whenever they are deployed (for instance, to that the war was about Americans killing Americans. If in take out black-masked terrorists holding hostages at

122 S uivkvier-Fa II, 1992 V iet Nam G eneration VoLume 4 NUMbER 5-4

Hoover Dam), they must afterwards be packed in ice or of overkill with patriotic duty (here the Gulf War leaps to else their brains overheat. (Brains?) mind). It is with such hyperbole that the film, if it has a Granted, this plot is on lunatic overdrive. And point, voices it. The best example of such convoluted granted, its clumsy turns are at least in part attributable insight comes from Orbach's mastermind doctor, who to the fact that the central characters are, well, stiffs. Yet says the Unisols suffer from "regressive traumatic recall," its cultural implications are not without interest. Consider, or a kind of Post-Death Post-Traum atic Stress Disorder for instance, the film’s vehement attack on amoral (PDPTSD). "science" (loosely described) and profit motives (see also, The paradox of mass media spectacles about war Alien's Company). Or the striking conflation of Viet Nam (even if they are. as this one is. basically anti-war) is this: and Gulf War images: the Unisols wear Desert Storm if both Scott and Luc are victims of systems and ideologies, fatigues in the American desert, even as they start having they are also both thrilling as kickboxing bonecrunchers. flashbacks to 1969 jungle scenes. Like Rambo or Robocop, they exact revenge for heinous It’s the “crazy vet" motif revisited with a vengeance, violence through enacting more heinous violence. Scott and more unnerving, rewritten as the next war. Memories ends up wearing another ear necklace stateside, plus of “Viet Nam" (that floating signifier) incite the guys to grenade spoons in his hair and badges taken from more effective aggression, and efforts to get their hands various cops he has to kill along the way. out from behind their figurative and muscular backs. In Moral Three: Paying money to watch such sublime particular, Scott is sent by his commander to deal with a machinations is the American Way. pesky news cameraman (weren't they somehow implicated The last sequence of the film is its most hysterical in the U.S. defeat?). Caught too close to the operation (a (if such a measurement could mean anything). Ronnie mobile Unisol storage unit on 18 wheels), the reporter is and Luc arrive at his parents’ Louisiana farm, still executed by Scott, who has gotten to “like" what he does. tracked by the relentless Scott. The inevitable mano-a- It goes on like this: the execution reminds Robo-Luc mano climactic battle is a profoundly perverse restaging of Scott’s murder of the Vietnamese locals. His military and continuation of the War (as Americans fighting program snaps (save for his uncanny ability to kick ass Americans) for the audience of Luc's powerless, frightened, with great sound effects) and his “identity" makes an Grant-Woodish parents. The song that blasts over the appearance. He rescues the reporter’s partner, a woman final credits leaves no question as to where the war reporter (in a miniskirt, need I add) named Ronnie (Ally continues: Ice T s thrash metal wake up call, “Body Walker). Count’s in the House." Moral Two: A woman in danger increases moral stakes. See, for instance, the Rape of Kuwait. Ronnie evokes, amongotherthings, the plot, times seven. The project coordinators send their truck full of iced Unisols after the couple, which results THe IVfARqiNS of t Me ViET Na m W ar in only one memorable moment (lifted from T2's references to Schwarzenegger’s oversized unit). The naked, By Frederic Pallez. Prescott Hall, Department o f French, still somewhat robotic Luc instructs Ronnie to search Louisiana Stale University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. him for "something hard" (a homing device): she makes Translated by Laurie Volpe appropriate faces. Other than this, though, the hetero relationship remains limp compared to the (relatively The text o f a presentation given at the 1992 Popular subtle) homoerotic tension/competition between the more Culture Association conference in Louisville, KY. often exposed and confrontational Big Guys. In this pairing, Lundgren is the more compelling When the war is defined its limits are set. This process persona. While Scott maintains his mechanical demeanor involves the closure of a space which has the disadvantage for most of the film, he does assume a maniacal personal of all such limitations and the tendency to approach that vendetta against Luc when his memory is also jolted back which is extremely regimented in temporal space. 1 am online. His “I'm a crazy vet" confessional occurs in a describing the historical method which is given that supermarket. Frustrated, without support or direction, name because of the chronological certitude that defines he rages before a nonplused local audience, folks standing it. But the frame of this panel, the title “Public Culture" in front of the red meat case, wearing string ties and which unites all the texts presented at this conference, cowboy hats and rayon dresses, folks who labor and distances itself from this historical topology I have watch TV. described in order to avoid the excess of interpretation “Do you have any idea what it's like out there!?" that such a classification implies. Scott yells. “Bustin' heads...it’s the only way to win this However, definitions are often necessary, especially fuckin’ war!" At this moment (conveniently) assaulted by those involved in the teaching process. For as one wants a squad of deputies, he takes them all out with rapid to present a picture of the war to a class, s/he must decide single shots to their chests, Amold-style. “See!" he how to reconcile and order the different representations screeches. They're everywhere!" of the conflict. This attempt ata pedagogical presentation If nothing else, Lundgren’s clearly parodic is not only a recapitulation of the important facts of a performance suggests that the imaginative distance chosen period which follows a well-developed thesis (this between Viet Nam and the pop cultural World remains is the impression I have of a historical study), it is also a immense, a distance perpetually reinforced by equations

12? S umimer-Fa U, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuivibcR 5-4 juxtaposition of the various images of a conflict, whether implications as the collective imaginary; by this I mean a they are literary, cinematographic, or otherwise. Foriflhe type of social unconscious which is transposed from the war is often seen from a purely historical point of view, historic register to an metaphorical register. such as Viet Nam, which has been given a set beginning This imaginary perceived as a space of time would and end, a conflict can also be seen according to other include the periods before and after the war which are criteria of representation. One of these alternate methods often historically considered to be exterior to the war, might be a reading of the Viet Nam war in terms of the although they are important for its interpretation. With social and cultural impact of that war on the collective regard to the Viet Nam war these margins are the memory. This would be a different approach, one which preparation for the war, the end of the fifties and the would involve the means of perception of the conflict beginning of the sixties. This period is also the end of which are not directly inspired by the events themselves. anotherwar, theFrench Indochina war. But this marginal This distanciation from historical facts which creates a period is also after the war. the continuation ofViet Nam different type of representation, is the major idea behind which involves the transfer of the actual combat into U.S. the research presented in the critical genre of “Public society and culture. Culture." By defining the Viet Nam war using these two limits, My project on the Vietnam war is double and I am leaving an important margin open, i.e., the period of ambivalent; it implies limits, and thus it is related to the more than ten years before the war (from 1954, the date historical research; but it is also absorbed by the image of the withdrawal of French troops from Indochina to of the Vietnam war outside of the direct perception of the 1965, the date of the massive American intervention); history of the conflict. A good example of this type of andalmost twenty years between theend ofthe Viet Nam indirect representation is the interpretation of Alasdair war and the beginning of the conflict in the Gulf, the Spark of two films in the Alien series, presented in an absence of military events during this period is replaced article found in the November 1991 issue of Viet Nam by the fabrication of the war image. It is this moment of Generation, entitled "Science Fiction: This Time It's reflection and transition from one war to another that I War.”1 In this article he transposes, through the use of am interested in; a no man's land that encircles the war science fiction, the principal motifs of the representation but that exists only in representation. of combat in the jungles ofViet Nam. Spark compares the In the interest of teaching the war, and presenting to invisible enemy in the jungle to the extra-terrestrial the reader the limits of the conflict other than the dates beings in the suffocating atmosphere of the space-ship of the beginning and end of the hostility. I would like to (one is reminded of the virgin forest). propose another definition: a definition whose limits are In order to reconcile these extra methods of studying those of two famous quotes that announce the beginning the war and to show the possibility of an inter-relation of and the end of the war. The first is that of General these different texts, I would like to compare them to what Westmoreland, one of the Commanders-in-Chief of the I will call the margins of the Viet Nam war. In other words, U.S. troops in Viet Nam, who said that the siege of Khe I am defining a margin as a limit and also that which is Sanh would not be another Dien Bien Phu. The General exterior to the object in question. I am interested in what is referring to theend ofthe Indochina War which caused happened before and after the war in terms of both the the French withdrawal from Indochina and forced the chronological and thematic history; by this I mean what American intervention in Southeast Asia. The other was exterior to the historical system, and at the same famous quote is that of George Bush, who, during the first time intrinsically attached to that system. The ambivalence hours of Operation Desert Storm, assured the television of this marginal situation is due to the game of attraction viewers that this war would not be another Viet Nam. and aversion that exists with regard to all that is “outside" Both quotes indicate the political need for a distancing of the center of representation (I am referring to Michel from the preceding events which were both considered as Foucault's idea on the archaeology of extremes, which he failures. This affirmation of a distance with regard to the develops in his studies of the history of madness and past is also the source of the construction of a new sexuality, respectively). Foucault's method is important political movement: General Westmoreland revives the to this study because he is interested in the eccentric. In public's memory ofViet Nam with regard to the Indochina terms of the war. that would be what is considered war. and President Bush has visions, even as early as the marginal. It is through this vision that the center—that is beginnings of the Gulf War. of a new world order. General to say the origin of the creation of the image—consisting Westmoreland, then President Bush use these indirect of the extremes and the margin—that the mechanism of allusions to past wars to announce the reality of the representation is most easily criticized. In this marginal existence of a conflict: these two sentences replace a context, the errors and the stance of the representation declaration of war. The illusion of change could not have seem to become more easily revealed. been achieved in these two cases if the cut had not been The scheme of perception of the war that 1 am made with the past, especially since the military past proposing here takes the form of an opposition: on one symbolized the failure. side the historical vision with its strict limits without These two rhetorical limits are interesting because margins, and on the other side the possibility of an they do not respect history, by this I mean that they enlargement of the space of the war: all that is eccentric contradict the historical limits of the Viet Nam war. They with regard to the history of the conflict, whether it is part underestimate the war as a reality in order to overestimate of the imaginary or strictly chronological. The term the war as imaginary. This definition recognizes what I “imaginary” in this historical context has the same have specified as the margins of the Viet Nam war: the

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period of latency before the quote by General the reader has understood the other witnesses of the war Westmoreland when the war had not yet started: and the and their personal stories (these stories comprise Michael period between the withdrawal of the troops in 1972- Herr's book). 1973 and the beginning of the Gulf War which was The conflict in the Gulf is marked entirely by signaled by the quote of President Bush. experiences of past wars, in this way the imaginaiy of the Because the official discourse o f the w ar ignores the Viet Nam war is closed. The imaginary of the Gulf (which chronological dates of the beginning and end of the war can be best portrayed by the techniques of media and utilizes the margins of the war as I have explained, representation and communication) takes its form from these margins have an important status in the the idea of repetition and simulation. A good example of representation. Paradoxically, it is the undecidability of the form it takes is the direct image which is televised the margins of the war that affect the center and its even though the viewer does not know the origin and ideology. Since these margins are undeeidable, the often the context of such images. The subjectification has politicians are able to choose their own vision of the disappeared from the representation of the Gulf war. conflict. The official rhetoric defines the war in terms of The reports on the Gulf conflict move without style: transition from the direct image to the simulation of the event: the viewer often cannot distinguish between the Metaphorical thought, in itself, is neither good reality of the war and the reconstitution. The images nor bad: it is sim ply commonplace and taken from the combat planes are good examples of the inescapable. Abstractions and enormously ambiguity of representation: these “real" images filmed complex situations are routinely understood via before and during the action have, paradoxically, the metaphor. characteristics of video game images because of their unreal and prefabricated construction. Artifice has become This quote from an article by George Lakoff is taken from the key to understanding the images of the Gulf war. This the November 1991 issue of Viet Nam Generation artificiality has replaced the subjective narrative. The entitled “Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used non-subjective war shows how military perception and to Justify War in the Gulf."2 He shows that the political medialic perception merge together: the lens of the discourse on war functions as follows: the collective camera and the view-finder of the weapon become one. imaginary permits the analogy between myth and politics This technique of perception negates the human aspect because of their common interest in all that is erratic, and because the weaponiy is automatic: by this I mean that thus undeeidable. The metaphor allows the real war to be the soldier has no other function than to control the transformed into an imaginary one—what Lakoff calls a initial mechanism after which s/he is reduced to the “metaphorical definition"—in other words, the status ofa spectator. Once the bomb is dropped, since the transposition of the conflict onto the ontological register. image is direct, it cannot be stopped. A concrete example of this metaphor is the “State-as- Because of the spectacular representation of the person-system" which gives politics a human face: the Gulf war with its direct images, the Viet Nam war is over. political discourse is a metaphor for the body, theeconomy The technique used in the Gulf war replaced that of the represents health, and the loss ofa territory is akin to the Viet Nam war. The force of the direct image used in the loss of a limb. Gulf war replaced the narrative which symbolized the This metaphorization, which involves the trans­ Viet Nam war. This change in the perception of war was position of a political problem onto a human one may be the catalyst which signaled the passage from one war to seen as a means of understanding the war itself. With another. regard to the Viet Nam war, the imaginaiy may be Following these same lines of foealization from the described as follows: it focuses on man rather than on the history of the war to its representation, it is possible to machines of war or the narrative. Furthermore, it shows define the end of the war as being the the importance of human activity other than the activities moment of the beginning of the U.S. war in Viet Nam. The of war: survival and perception, whether it be that of the novelty of the representat ion of the American war with its soldier or the journalist who views the event. intensification of actual images replaced the old-fashioned The representation of the Viet Nam war gives the images of the Indochina war, which did not have the impression of a subjective point of view presented by a intimacy of the Viet Nam war images, nor their immediacy. witness who was present during the action. This The passage from the Indochina war to the Viet Nam subjectivity is perpetuated through the figure of the war with regard to the representation of the imaginary warrior and the journalist in Dispatches, by Michael occurred in France through the vision of those who had Herr.3 Even though the narrative is incomprehensible, experienced the two conflicts. One of the authors who we can begin to understand the story through the observed these conflicts was Jean Larteguy, who wrote discourses of these characters. In this story these Yellow Fever,5 in which he described the wars in witnesses of the war are necessary so that the reader may Southeast Asia. The comparison between these two wars accept the truth of the narrative: “Patrol went up the revealed important differences, especially in terms of the mountain. One man came back. He died before he could equipment of the armies. Most importantly, it revealed tell us what happened."'1 Michael Herr insists that he did that the Indochina war, which had been vivid in the not understand the story until the end of his stay in Viet collective memory. was being assimilated into the Viet Nam: this end signifies the end of the stoiy for the reader, Nam war. Pierre SchoendoeriTer shows this effect in the which implies that the story cannot be understood until parallel between the novel La 317eme section6 and the

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documentary , which he filmed later with the U.S. Army during the Viet Nam war. ViET Naim W ar S tueIIes: A C uIt u r a I Schoendoerffer makes indirect references to his preceding works, in which he shows parallels with the Indochina M a t er Ia Ust AppROAch war by exploring the fate of a combat section in the Viet Nam war. The comparison forgets the divergences and by Tony Williams, Dept, o f Cinema and Photography, permits the passage from one war to another. Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale. Between these wars is a period of latency which starts in 1954 and finishes at the moment of the massive Albert Auster and Leonard Quart, How the War was American intervention in the middle of the sixties. This Remembered: Hollyivood and Vietnam (New York: period is crucial for the image of the French Indochina Praeger, 1988). war (the moment of its construction) as well as for the John Carlos Rowe and Rick Berg, Eds. The Vietnam War American war in Viet Nam. The American version of this and American Culture (New York: Columbia University period between the two wars is simplified by the Press, 1991). representative suggested by Graham Greene in The Owen W. Gilman, Jr. and Lorrie Smith, Eds. America Quiet American,7 in which spy stories comprise the Rediscovered: Critical Essays on Literature and Film principle action. By reducing this period to a spy story he o f the Vietnam War (New York: Garland Publishing. Inc. has denied the war completely. 1990). The Viet Nam war, born of this ambiance of the Cold Philip D. Beidler, Re-Writing America: Vietnam War, a situation which had become non-existent if not Authors in Their Generation (Athens, Ga: The impossible, had reason to become prominent with regard University of Georgia Press, 1991). to the apparent lack of action before the war. The comparison of the margins of the war of 1954-1965, both Over the past decade abundant historical, political, French and U.S., present a contradiction. This funda­ literary, and cultural approaches to the growing field of mental opposition between a definition of this period as Viet Nam war studies have appeared. The rich material either warlike or pacifist, or rather to consider one as the already available provides both a secure foundation and continuation of the other or vice-versa, is important to stimulus for future work in the nineties. Naturally alert the understanding of the war itself. to status quo threats within any growing movement, In order to return to and finish with the problematic academia's conservative nature will examine this terrain of the teaching of the war, this example of the interpretation seeking to recuperate any discourse for “balanced," a- of the Viet Nam war which follows many perspectives, historical self-referential purposes. Thus, while certain such as that of the French war and the U.S. war, and also works (Kovic, Ehrhart. Emerson) appear too dangerously the Gulf conflict, shows the possibility of presenting the implicated in “unacceptable" areas of emotional rage, war in terms of different forms of representation rather historical relevance and realist structure, others appear than a strict chronological treatment of the event. Teaching ideal candidates for inclusion within certain non- the war does not mean merely teaching the history of the referential discourses associated with deconstruction events, even though there should be some respect for the and postmodernism. Recognition ofthese dangers should chronology. In order to understand the war, one must afford no excuse to entirely condemn these recent understand what I have called the imaginary of the war. movements. In many instances they have correctly The study of margins is one of the ways to mitigate the questioned premises behind ideologically induced “correct" ambivalence in the interpretation of the conflicts because judgments. In Screen/Play: Derrida and Film Theory, of the relationship the margins have with both the Peter Brunette and David Wills highlight the often- chronology and the imaginaiy of these conflicts. neglected. political components in later Derrida. N. Bradley Christie's 1988 doctoral dissertation, Another War and Notes Postmodern Memory: Remembering Vietnam offers 1 Alasdair Spark, "Science Fiction: This Tim e it’s W ar." V ie tn a m significant insights into a discourse that does not, per se, G e n e r a t io n (Nov 1991): 29-30. have to be a-historical or non-realistic. 2 George LakoflT, "Metaphor and War," Vietnam Generation However, in an era of increasing reaction, many (Nov 1991): 32-39. English departments see Tim O'Brien’s Going After 3 Michael Herr, D is p a t c h e s (New York: Avalon) 1978. Cacciato as ideal material for stressing authorial self- 4 Ibid.: 4 -5 . referentiality above the historical associations resulting 5 Jean Lartcguy, Yellow Fever, translated from the French by Xan Fielding (New York: Dutton) 1965. in its origination. Similarly, certain Film departments 6 , La 317eme section (Paris: la Table eagerly seize on The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now ronde) 1962. as new candidates for insertion within the romantic 7Graham, Greene, The guiet American (New York: Viking Press) terrain of the now questionable “auteur theory." With a 1 955. new generation of students, the products of Reaganite/ Bush-Thatcherite/Major discourses, cheering each manufactured jingoism surrounding the Falklands, Grenada, and Gulf, it is essential to find critically pedagogic methods, raising consciousness towards complexities buried beneath any particular discourse.

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Noting the strength of conservative discourse within step towards leading the reader to understand such their particular geographical and educational areas, both intrinsic “lack" the work is sufficient. But the book points Raymond Williams and Edward Said were aware of towards the necessity of using more rigorous critical departmental isolation. In his retirement lectures, strategies in any approach concerning representations of delivered within an institution noteworthy for its low the Viet Nam war. number of working class students and high number of Many typographical errors mar the work. From the suicides, Williams stressed the necessity of moving beyond many citable instances the following are notable: “Terry academic boundaries, viewing a wider context, and Souther" (26) for Terry Southern: “Frank Hammer" (28) constructing a cultural materialist project—“the analysis for Frank Hamer in Bonnie and Clyde; and “E.M. of all forms of signification, including quite centrally Forester” for E.M. Forster (63). Better proof-reading is a writing, within the actual means and conditions of their must for any new edition. The authors misquote Kurtz's production" [“Crisis in English Studies," Writing in lines from Apocalypse Now (68). Society (London: Verso) 1984: 210], Arguing for the Are the remaining survivors at the end of Samuel necessity of any oppositional critical consciousness, Fuller’s The Steel Helmet in any condition to “go off to Edward Said also stressed moving beyond traditional continue the battle" (13). They are all physically and boundaries to utilize a number of disciplines when dealing mentally exhausted. (The authors really need to consider with any question of representation. Since representation this film both in the context of Fuller's other work as well embodies itself within the language, culture, institutions, as relevant studies of PTSD.) Gene Evan's Sgt. Zack and politics of any representer, “then we must be prepared uncannily exhibits that “two thousand yard stare" ignored toaccept the fact that a representation is eo ipso implicated, in most war representations up to Viet Nam. As an ex­ intertwined, embedded, interwoven with a great many combat infantryman. Fuller attempted inserting as much other things than the “truth," which is itself a of his own war experiences into his films as possible representation. What this must lead us to methodologically unless censorship forces intervened. In 1962, his attempt is to view representations (or misrepresentations—the to show "friendly fire" decimating American troops in distinction is at best a matter of degree) as inhabiting a Merrill's Marauders failed. However, even without these common field of play defined for them, not by some extra-textual references, the authors are clearly oblivious inherent common subject matter alone, but by some to what is actually happening in the film. They want it to common history, tradition, universe of discourse" fit neatly into their rigid thesis. By ignoring the particular lOrientalism (New York: Pantheon) 1978: 272-273], nature of Fuller's work they make the climax of The Steel Finding a place within such an area which no one scholar Helmet fit into the type of dogmatic neo-formalist can create, each researcher finds a place and then makes conclusion David Bordwell makes of the concluding a contribution with full knowledge of a complex area, scene of Anthony Mann’s Winchester 73 (1950) in often shifting into new configurations. Such a "Happily Ever After, Part Two," [The Velvet Light Trap, multidisciplinary field offers a scope far beyond the 19 (1982): 4). Both films end with emotionally exhausted capacity of any individual discipline. heroes, whose performances visually contradict the usual Understanding the nature of these different terrains banal discourse of Hollywood's happy ending. The authors aids us towards recognizing and combating the present really needed to undertake a rigorous examination malaise discerned by Rowe and Berg. recognizing the film’s textual tensions, a procedure that “What the cultural reception of the Vietnam War has their survey format would not allow. made manifestly clear is that American ideology is itself The same problem affects their other interpretations. an extraordinarily canny artist, capable of accommodating While Fuller's China Gate may appear to contain a “gross the most vigorous criticism and for that very reason cartoonlike plot" and hover “perilously close to the powerfully resistant to social and political changes"(x). sophistication of a Steve Canyon comic-strip adventure" Any isolated institutional discipline is clearly (13) much more occurs in this film than the reductive incapable of dealing with these contemporary dangers. A Cold War discourse Auster and Quart believe the text multidisciplinary technique and knowledge appears the contains. They do not consider the visual implications of most valuable tool for any oppositional criticism today. Fuller's formal devices, both comic-strip and documentaiy, Auster and Quart wrote the first late 80s full-length often disrupting the manifest premises of the Cold War study of Hollywood representations. The work does have plot. At least Cahiers du Cinema's Luc Moullet did in its uses. It has much to say within a particular 1959. The authors totally misunderstood Fuller's complex representational discourse, mainly based on content intentions in using Nat King Cole as the mercenary analysis. But its very premises force one to interrogate Goldie. Far from being a “patronizing image... the the whole area far more deeply and with (he aid of embodiment of what a tolerant, nonracist society will different methodologies. While the authors strive to make produce: a sexless, smiling, black cold warrior, eternally the reader aware of the changing discursive terrain, their singing and cleaning his gun," Goldie is an ideological very project appears impoverished and founders from victim, echoing Griffs paranoid racist projections lack of considering relevant tolls of signifying techniques, displaced on to "lying commies.” both victim and victimizer, narratological structures, subject-positioning, and the foreshadowing the insane black Ku Klux Klan fanatic in whole multidisciplinary arsenal of cultural studies. In an Shock Corridor. While the authors recognize era benefiting from the application of several critical tools incongruities concerning white actors playing Eurasians, necessitating precise concentration, the whole survey Fuller's use of Angie Dickinson and Lee Van Cleef is approach certainly appears very old-fashioned. As a first certainly not totally "orientalist." Resisting the easy

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of social control and potentially in the interests temptation towards condescending amusement, the of a more just society (x). authors could have seen both characters as fulfilling key narrative structures. As with Run o f the Arrow, the This collection is indispensable reading for anyone foreign landscape in China Gate represents a working within the diverse fields of Viet Nam studies battleground for American tensions over national identity. today. Stimulating, imaginative, and concise, it offers These American actors echo white society's split tensions valuable suggestions for new developments and critical and the difficulties involving any easy resolution inherent interventions within both academic and publicdiscourses. within identification with either the West or Soviet Union. In a worthy introduction, the editors insist on linking the Fuller's characters are all “split subjects." More than any normally discrete discourses surrounding film, literature, other contemporary director, he identified the fissures and history in a project involving teachers interrogating beneath a supposedly complacent decade, representing their own educational practices. As they remark, “there it within both visual style and characterization. His can be no 'accurate' treatment of what Viet Nam means works deserve analytic examination for their deliberate for American culture until these very teachers reconsider techniques of political and ideological fragmentation. the material practices that have shaped curricula, instruction, Unfortunately, Auster and Quart's inability to explore and research projects in our universities for decades Fuller's deliberate use of contradictions extends to their before and after the Vietnam War" (15). To take this other examinations of Viet Nam war films. As Fuller wrote project seriously thus involves a process of struggle no to his audience at the climax of Run o f the Arrow, we all less strategic within the institution as well as outside it. have to write the real end of the story. While noting the The first section—“The Vietnam War and History" - dangers inherent in any close readingone wishes that the begins with Noam Chomsky's "Visions of Righteousness." authors had attended more to the textual mechanism's Although marginalized and excluded from mainstream actual complexity in style, narrative, and performance. publications. Chomsky continues to act as an inspiration Is The Deer Hunter really built upon “an uncritical to all oppositional scholars. He continues his role as one identification with Michael and his friends?" (63). Even of those rare voices of conscience within American without knowing the alternative readings of Robin Wood academia. His essay contains a stimulating analysis of all (Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan) or Susan those historical, geographical, and academic discourses Jeffords (The Remasculinization of America) and which still attempt political misrepresentations today. It critical work in gender, one confronts a film demanding is essential reading for all engaged in historical, literary better critical methodologies than the authors use. Surely and cinematic approaches to Viet Nam. Stephen Vlastos’s there are places where Cimino undercuts any attempt at "Revisionist Vietnam History," is one of the new essays the “working-class superman—capable of bringing some within this collection—a concise examination of those order to t he war's mad ness a nd some form of reconc ilia t ion post-1975 discourses associated with Nixon and Lewy at home" (65) within the film? which gained hegemonic dominance in popular 1980s Despite an interestingdiscussion of Apocalypse Now representations. Reprinted from the original Cultural and the Reaganite revisionist MIA sub-genre, much of Critique issue, Carol Lynn Mither's “: How The War W as Rem em bered is extrem ely Women Warriors in Vietnam" represents one of the unsatisfactory, beggingquestions needing more culturally earlier essays focusing on the often-excluded depiction of materialist critical tools. In comparison with Steve Fore's the female presence within Viet Nam. All these essays are 1986 doctoral dissertation, “The Perils of Patriotism." it appropriately historically grounded and concisely written. leaves much to be desired. Part Two's section—“The Vietnam War and Mass The Vietnam War and American Culture fills much Media"—begins with Claudia Springer's perceptive essay of this critical desire. Revising and extending the Spring on “Military Propaganda: Defense Department Films 1986 Cultural Critique issue, it is a veiy important work from World War II and Vietnam" illustrating both fully aware of the essential multi-disciplinary nature continuities and differences within historically bound surrounding any involvement in Vietnam studies. Aware representational strategies. Rick Berg's “Losing Vietnam: of the very necessity of cultural criticism and the danger Covering the War in An Age of Technology" usefully of avoiding solipsislic literary critical tendencies, the surveys all the different fictional and documentary editors eloquently argue their case. strategies engaged in "speaking Vietnam." Concluding The cultural criticism we offer in this volume is with the alternative fictional representations of Hailie in many respects at odds with literary criticism, Gerima's Ashes and Embers (1982) and Haskell even when literary criticism is genuinely Wexler's Latino (1985), Berg notes that “The vet is comparative, culturally diverse, and relumed not merely to the history of historians but to a multidisciplinary. Cultural criticism can be class of history spoken by the oppressers, a counter- effective only when it focuses on the relations memory lost to the dominant discourse" (143). These among those cultural media that have political suggest techniques for any counter-representational significance in both their production and their strategies. John Carlos Rowe's “Eyewitness: Documentary reception. Finally, cultural criticism cannot Styles in the American Representations ofVietnam" is an contribute significantly to cultural politics until it expertly researched article, interrogating realist discourses investigates carefully the ways in which and the textuality of history. In its area, it does everything apparently discrete media work in more which Auster and Quart do not. Fully aware o f issues profoundly coordinated ways - both for purposes concerning formal devices, imagery, and audience

128 S u m m c r -F aII, 1992 V iet Nam G eneration V o Iuime 4 INuivibcR 5-4 recognition, he raises key questions of interpretation fact a mechanism for a more general confirmation inextricably associated with historical and discursive of the structures and operations of the masculine issues. point of view that underlies U.S. gender systems The final part contains three essays examining the (217). Vietnam War and Popular Media. In “Remembering Vietnam," Michael Clark investigates the strategic issue Hence, historically governed masculine perspectives of popular memory beginning with Walter Benjamin's concerning war experience really distract attention from important axiom from “Theses on the Philosophy of Paco's Story's attempt at confronting traditional gender History," particularly relevant today: “Only that historian patterns. will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past David James contributes a useful essay on The who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe Vietnam War and American Music." The collection from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased concludes with three poems by W.D. Ehrhart, to be victorious." "Responsibility," “Parade Rest," and The Invasion of Examining film and television images of Vietnam Grenada," whose imagery forms a fitting conclusion to veterans, he notes stereotypical devices ideologically this volume. separating them from family and community discourses. Better arranged than its initial Cultural Critique “They relegate the specific, concrete contradictions appearance with some new material, The Vietnam War involved in being a veteran at a particular moment in and American Culture is a stimulating work whose history to the realm of private experience and personal implications extend to many educational approaches memory, and they divorce that realm entirely from the towards Vietnam. It is imaginative, provoking, and highly forms of social interactions that are represented as relevant as a critical and pedagogical tool. permanent and useful." (185) TV movies such as Memorial America Rediscovered also contains several essays Day (1984) and fictional representations by Robert Stone using various approaches to film, literature, theater, and (A Flag for Sunrise) and Philip Caputo (Del Corso's poetry. Several of the offerings originally appeared in The Gallery) present historically based issues in the forms of PopularCulture Association's Vietnam Panels. Like Philip individual moral dilemmas, seeking to disavow Viet Nam D. Beidler's Rewriting America, the work focuses on from any engagement with American society, in a simplistic Vietnam's intersections with the above realms of form of separation between public and private realms of interpretations. While many writers have expanded their knowledge. These necessitate the importance of original papers, others appear not to have developed their deconstructive readings as well as the relevant panel presentations. The final result is not cohesive, the fragmentary textual mechanisms contained in Jayne weaker essays strongly contrasting with their more Anne Phillip's Machine Dreams (1984). Her work developed neighbors. "internalizes Vietnam within American society as a Gilman and Smith divide their anthology into three dislocation in the usual mechanisms of order and sections—Text. "“Vietnam and American Culture: Looking significance rather than as a threat from the outside, and Glass Texts," and “Genre Overviews." After an editorial representing those ideological mechanisms as a literary introduction, the first essay by Philip Beidler outlines the machinery of personal desire and family continuity thesis of his recent book. Michael Bellamy's "Carnival dramatizes the constructed nature of both memory and and Carnage: Falling Like Rock Stars and Second history" (194). We certainly note a positive use of Lieutenants" presents interesting insights into David deconstruction, as opposed to its usual operations Carradine's neglected 1981 film Americana. He views associated with the Yale school. However, whether we Carradine's attempts to repair the broken-down carousel can apply it to Indian Country, with its heavy as offering a Bakhiinian carnivalesque alternative to a indebtedness to the originally male bildimgsronxan post-Vietnam fragmented American society. With his discourse, is another matter. references to Hawthorne, Herr, The Ugly American and Any cultural examination of Viet Nam remains Apocalypse Now, Bellamy provides revealing insights incomplete without raising issues of gender into the imaginative structures motivating this highly representation. Susan Jeffords's new essay, ‘Tattoos, unusual film. Noting the confusions endemic within any Scars, Diaries, and Writing Masculinity" acutely social understanding of gender, Milton Bates contrasts interrogates Larry Heinemann’s Paco's Story. She notes Coming Home with Donald Pfarrer's novel Neverlight that other textual techniques undermine supposedly within the context of a turbulent period challenging alternative images of dislocating victimized male voices, conventional thought patterns. He is incisive concerning especially the ghosts. In Country's flaws.

The self-critique placed within the novel is Like The Big Chill, then In Country disposes of recuperated by the acceptance the ghosts offer the sixties tensions between the sexes by Paco and those he represents. In these terms, the reaffirming, albeit wit h a dose of conscious irony, masculine point of view separates itself from aversion of the feminine mystique. Though both masculinity proper, viewing its failures and allude to sexual conflict and imply a connection shortcomings, at the same time that it maintains with the Vietnam War, they are framed in such its own stability, anchored in a gender system. a way as to preclude serious engagement with Thus the appearance of self-examination is in the conflict. In Country's chief strength, its

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convincing representation of a particular Hansen’s “Vocabularies of Experience" interrogates the character’s point of view, remains its chief limitations of certain literary techniques to engage active weakness (28-29). reader participation while H. Palmer Hall’s “The Helicopter and The Punji Stick: Central Symbols of the Vietnam W hether N everlight provides a convincing War” provides a basic taxonomic classification of these alternative still remains an open question. Despite Bates’s central images. championship in the light of the feminist axiom combining Part 11—“Looking Glass Texts"—begins with Robert the personal and political, the work may contain too E. Bourdette’s “Rereading The Deer Hunter. Michael much of the former and little of the latter. In any case, Cimino's Deliberate American Epic" noting the film’s further debate is needed here. ritual and metaphoric devices. However, it is an archetypal Influenced by Foucault. Donald Rignalda criticizes “lit crit" essay avoiding the racist implications within the the discursive associations surrounding “truth’’ and “fact" notorious Russian roulette sequence in favor of in “Unlearning to Remember Vietnam." Hailing Herr as metaphorical interpretation. In “Style in Dispatches: Foucault's archaeologist, he suggests. “Perhaps the Heteroglossia and Michael Herr’s Break with Conventional Vietnam War was simply too monstrous for import. Journalism," Matthew C. Stewart argues that Herr's Perhaps it simply is too chaotic" (72). However, there is a Bakhtinian “mullivocal" text allows him to undermine great danger in moving too far away from history. Using journalistic discourse and speak on behalf of disaffected such techniques often leaves the door open for conservative grunts. This is an interpretation deserving comparison historical erasure strategies. Rignalda does not move with W.D. Ehrhart’s more scathing approach contained towards such a conclusive direction. Instead, he argues in In The Shadow o f Vietnam (1991). Robert M. Slabey for recognizing the complex issues beneath verisimilitude and Catherine Calloway examine Going After Cacciato, techniques. As his final passage suggestively states, "But the latter regarding it as a postmodernist work designed once we unlearn to simplislically remember Vietnam to "reject any over-simplifications of the Vietnam war's according to the old untroubling geometry, it means inconsistencies and discrepancies" (222). altogether too much" [73/ italics mine). We must, of The remaining essays provide several launching course, remember the value of“truth" and “fact," especially pads for future investigation. David Everett Whillock in the light of a recent revisionist review essay in The exam ines Apocalypse Now using Levi-Strauss’ Journal of American Culture, 14.4. 80-81. 83 structuralist methodologies and also attempts to define validating the Gulf intervention and the contemporary the various components of a Vietnam War Film Genre. relevance of America’s role as the “City on the Hill." We The volume reprints W.D. Ehrhart's essay, “Soldier Poets must not hand the enemy too many weapons. of the Vietnam War" from the 1987 Virginia Quarterly Philip K. Jason's “Vision and Tradition in Vietnam Review—an eloquent argument for considering this War Fiction" opposes Heinemann/ O'Brien and Hasford's usually neglected corpus, while Vicente F. Gotera analyses new literary mixture of fictional strategies to the old past Yusef Komunyakaa's Dien Cai Dau. William Palmer's narrative modes of Del Vecchio/Webb/ Huggett. Lorrie argument that Platoon's nihilistic battle scenes Smith takes a similar position in “Disarming the War undermine Stone's realistic discourses clashes with Story," noting the tendency of certain realist techniques Claudia Springer’s 1988 Genre article which suggests to convey the “erotic allure of battle," (91) applauding the that any war movie's spectacular battle scenes really innovative devices within Going After Cacciato, undermine critical comprehension. Dispatches, Paco's Story, Meditations in Green, and America Reconsidered is a useful collection. Kubrick’s . Marilyn Durham's However, all the different contributions really need framing “Narrative Strategies in Vietnam War Fiction" and David against a better introduction which would more suitably J. De Rose's “A Dual Perspective: First Person Narrative suggest the necessaiy cultural studies perspective towards in Vietnam Film and Drama" also question realism's which they could individually donate. The Rowe/Berg validity in depicting a fragmented post-Vietnam America. collection provides an important model here. All the above approaches are interesting. But do we According to Viet Nam Generation 4.1-2 (1992): 5 have, necessarily, to abandon realism particularly when Michael Bibby is calling for a special issue. The Viet Nam the form can lend itself to radical dislocating strategies? War and Postmodemity. This is especially welcome as George Eliot, Mikhail Bakhtin and James Jones do the term needs specific examination in regard to what it present these alternative strategies. Also, as several denotes and how it is relevant to Viet Nam studies. critics (Jeffords, Melling) show, even supposedly Although one does not wish to label the entire movement oppositional works such as Paco's Story, The Short as “The Myth of Postmodernism: The Bourgeois Timers, Going After Cacciato, and Dispatches do Intelligentsia in the Age of Reagan" as Andrew Britton did contain conservative elements within supposedly in his provocative assault in cineACTION! 13/14 progressive anti-realist techniques. Discussion needs to (Summer 1988): 3-17, one is certainly aware that some of focus on the specific validity of any formal technique its tenets are recuperable by that very ideology Rowe and within fiction. Bergdefinein their collection. It is possibly too early to tell Three suggestive essays conclude this section. whether postmodernism is a negative movement or one Cynthia J. Fuchs's "Vietnam and Sexual Violence: The capable of providing potential discourses capable of Movie" examines Full Metal Jacket's innovative triple undermining rigid gender, ideology and power structures. collapse of Otherness onto enemy onto Woman. J.T. However, the movement does need further interrogation.

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Philip D. Beidler detects a postmodern current in the conservative terrain of New Criticism. writers he scrutinizes in Re-Writing America: Vietnam The dangers are certainly present in his description Authors in Their Generation. Following his 1985 work, of Going After Cacciato's textual significance. American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam, Beidler argues that Viet Nam war authors have done For the enterprise, albeit in the new vein of much to re-energize American creative writing, leading it postmodern 'magical' realism, is very much out of a poststucturalist impasse of texts as endless Melville's own, and on the same scale: to devise critiques of language, representation, and authority. a grammatology, a linguistic rendering of felt Approaching the fictional constructions of O’Brien, Caputo, experience that might project it imaginatively Robert Olen Butler, James Webb, Winston Groom and into new dimensions of knowledge, meaning, Heinemann; David Rabe's drama, the poetry of John and value. Indeed, in Going After Cacciato, we Balaban, W.D. Ehrhart, David Huddle, Yusef are confronted with the prospect of a new Kommunyakaa, Walter McDonald, and Bruce Weigh and imaginative fiction of the American experience of the journalistic literature of witness such as Gloria Vietnam that would propose ultimately to reify Emerson, Frances Fitzgerald, Robert Stone, and Michael itself precisely through imagination into nothing Herr, Beidler regards them as applying “many of the less than redemptory cultural fact" (20). hard-won lessons of literary sense-making learned in initial works attempting to come to terms explicitly with The definition is very problematic. Imagination can be Vietnam" (2). Beidler's investigation therefore concerns a “escape from," not "escape to." It provides a comforting re-writing of the American experience, believing that retreat. While conservatism batters us in everyday life “Vietnam authors in their generation have carried their how easy it would bejust to create in literary imagination, crucial enactment of that mythic self-critique into the whether as authors or readers. While certain new literary very center of our national literature and consciousness techniques operate, one asks whether we can entirely at large" (xiii). remove the historical, political, and realistic significance Within its perspective, this book is extremely of Viet Nam entirely and move into a comfortable, non­ interesting and suggestive. Well-written and informative, activist world of imagination? Did the authors he examine noting the boundaries of postmodern experience, the ever intend this? While it is a mistake to regard Melville's work contains much of value. One cannot argue with the Moby Dick as merely about a whale, it is also a fatal error findings within its particular context. However, the context to regard the work as totally devoid of questions concerning does need to be far broader covering issues of history, its contemporary historical, cultural, and genderquestions politics, ideology and gender. The exact nature of as critics such as Richard Slotkin show. Something else, postmodernism needs closer definition. Beidler's work in addition to the imagination, is necessary. unfortunately falls into the tendency of neglecting the While Beidler subjects Caputo's works to an intense cultural and historical significance of Viet Nam and its examination of their narrative structures he is disturbingly people. The country, again, forms the background for a unaware of the pernicious gender mechanisms in Indian particular American experience—this time of a cultural Country. He regards the climax as optimistic! revisionist project of re-writing. While this is informative, counter-arguments such as those of Philip Melling in The secret of Indian Country, at once the Vietnam in American Literature concerning historical burden of Starkman's historicity and the possible retreat and self-referential escapism also need considering. promise of his mythic liberation from history will Wholesale “imaginative reshaping" (12) also has its be the newest vision of an old I ndian wisdom, the dangers. acceptance of a world, like that imagined in the text itself, that will always be at once a place and What is suggested here is an art at once of the an exile, here and other" (51 /italics mine). possible and of the newly plausible—a ground of genuinely new creation that in the same moment Again, we see the return of Leslie A. Fiedler's vanishing returns us to ourselves in enlarged dimensions American reinscribed to prop up failed American of insight, in various forms, it is an idea that runs masculinity paralleling 's The Doors (1991). through the pronouncements of various major There are so many areas begging questions in an analysis writers studied here in this text. Tim O'Brien, for solely confined to the text and devoid of so many instance, has described ‘the central theme of the perspectives that a cultural materialist project could novel' as ‘how we use our imagination to deal bring to it. Indian Country ideologically restores Viet with situations around us, not just to cope with Nam literature to myth, disavowing the conflict's historical them psychologically but, more importantly, to reverberations so that it fits into a typical literature class deal with them philosophically and morally’... situation. One returns with relief to Lorrie Smith's (305). discerning interrogation of Caputo in Am erica Reconsidered. 89-91. Laudable enough. But one is tempted to ask for the Beidler is certainly aware of the Vietnamese character presence of other culturally materialist dimensions of but he views it in terms of a peculiar American agony, an thought or one risks inserting Viet Nam within the agony undergoing literary reinscription (55). A writer, such as Robert Olen Butler, engages in a mode “essentially

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that of neorealism, closely symbolic, often with an almost towards an interrogation of certain recent critical Hawlhornian exactitude of design, economy, and techniques used to “read" and “write" Viet Nam, attention psychological penetration, with the effect often of should now go to Viet Nam itself. All the above works deal something like a postmodern morality play" (56). Again, with various responses to Viet Nam. But Viet Nam still the terms need precise definition. There is often a tendency remains as a shadowy “structured absence" determining to hide behind literaiy definitions instead of looking American responses, but with the very foundations leading beyond them towards a necessaiy cultural perspective, to those responses relatively unexcavated. Certain works one involving Viet Nam (its people, its culture) as well as have appeared over the past decade. More are needed. America. The recently announced Red River Press anthologies The Rabe plays form his most interestingexamination should help fill this gap. to contribute towards a critically if only because the language and issues involved (family, oppositional cultural materialist project that should never culture, race and gender) have relevant connections with be totally American in orientation. the “world outside" the text, have indelible associations within the text, and can not suffer postmodern erasure. However. Beidler's other critical definitions remain questionable. Obviously preferring the new postmodernist mode, he regards James Webb’s project as inextricably related to his choice of formal technique—“the basically conservative and revisionary nature, indeed almost perversely anachronistic choice of fictional mode" (69). P o et r y by Rod McQuEARy Again, another provocative statement! Does realism per se have to be “conservative" and “anachronistic" determining a particular political stance? The mode is capable of many inflexions and variations as writers as instinct —for a friend diverse as James Jones and W.D. Ehrhart show. His bias against realism appears in a sweeping judgment regarding the huey crew James Jones and Norman Mailer as “operating within the made a routine hop dynamics of the traditional novel of combat" (74). They fast in and out certainly used the mode. But Beidler does not consider to get some local folks the alternative elements they individually brought into the form. Certainly, they are far removed from the the old viet contemporary abuses of realism seen in Saigon shuffles up Commando and M.I.A. Hunter. his flickering eyes Beidler is on firmer ground with poetry since he has crooked gold-glint smile an excellent sense of poetic techniques and devices tries to hide his fear resulting in his understanding how Viet Nam war poetry breaks with past traditions to articulate the conflict’s his last sin emotional horror. His analysis of Balaban, Kommunyakaa fatal mistake and Weigl are very informative. But his understanding of was to stumble Ehrhart's work raises problems. He describes Ehrhart as mar the polish on “the rude, angry soldier poet, early on attempting to find a cold-eyed door-gunner’s a voice, and the spiritually chastened culture hero whose spit shined boot odyssey out of memoiy toward imaginative sense making becomes the quest for new myth and better” (158). The it was over in three first part of the sentence does befit a poet whom Beidler heart beats describes as earlier “championing a ’Vietnam’ literature they were up and gone when there was virtually no one. so it seemed, in the out of sight of the little United States who possibly cared to read it or hear about clearing it" (310). It is also true that he has a significance of which before “conventional criticism will never provide an adequate the old man's account." But the same may be true of recent struggling body parts “conventional" postmodernist terms. Ehrhart's accepted death significance stems well beyond searching for “new myth and lay back and better" as his recent collection, Just For Laughs. relaxed reveals. He articulates historical relevance in all his work, the past warning the present, a dimension certainly irreducible to the mythic. The whole thesis of Beidler’s work is American re- writingofViet Nam. It contains much interestingargument in its thesis. But the perspective is limited. His work should represent the last in its type. In addition to leading

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White Wall for nothing for paw-tay

There ought to be another wall a Sunday evening phone call White, bright, pretty to a brother-in-law In a grove of trees i ask about an old story with picnic tables, he half told once dance floor, and a Viet Vet ragtime band. we took two dusters to the A happy place where cambodian border Folks could go to laugh or maybe farther and dance and argue he said Football teams and candidates. On the White Wall, there would be to a fire base on top a hill A tremendous list of those assigned to shoot Who didn’t die. russian resupply choppers Behind each name, a little heart... for a fulfilling marriage they had been taking a little happy face... for a rockets mortars well-adjusted child, all day a little diploma... for a valuable education, all night for two weeks a rewarding life. when the resupply hueys Everyone is welcome here. would come in To cool drinks, rummy games, these soldiers would To meet interesting people who scream and jump Talk, laugh, have fun, wander off. scream and jump Live. hang from the skids To celebrate our survivorhood. the pilot would Not mourn our stolen martyrdom. wiggle and spin his ship and shake them off There are some who will they would fall Have to be shown and curse and sob The White Wall. Taken to their own name i was there two days and told a long time he said “There, by God, is proof." how many russian copters did they get i ask something— For Life none they If life were just one April day, could never get And 1 should wake, mid-afternoon. the clearance To feel the sunshine on my shirt, to shoot Warm scattered raindrops wet my cheek. I'd marvel with my newborn eyes At the beauty I had never seen. Rod McQueary, HC 60, Ruby Valley, Nevada, 89833, 702- 779-2257, contrilmled poems to Viet Nam Generation If life should be one April day. I’ll not pine for a morning, lost. 4:1 -2. He is a leading Cowboy Poet, and appears frequently at Gatherings and in John Dofflemyer'sDry Crik Review, Nor mourn some stolen martyrdom. PO 51, Lemon Cove, CA 93244. Dofflemyer will soon publish Blood Trail, a collection o f McQueary and fellow But hand in hand, my love and I cowboy vet Bill Jones, Jr. will lift one cup for fallen friends, Then, our business done. We'll laugh till wrinkles frame our eyes.

And in these final precious hours, We'll celebrate the eveningtime. S u m m e r -FaU, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration V o Ium e 4 NuMbER 5-4

current fad in the nebulous field called “social studies" eaching seems to be world history. World history courses often T approach their subject matter from a spatial or temporal framework; however, events that encompass more than a single time period or geographical area are often TeacN Y o ur ChildREN W eLL: RAisiNq t He Next considered too difficult for students to comprehend and. perhaps, for teachers to teach. If students receive little or G eneration on t He ViET Na m W a r 1 no exposure to the Viet Nam war in their elementary, junior high, or high school classrooms, they are ill- Steve Potts, Department oJHistory, University of Nebraska, prepared for college courses that suddenly introduce a Lincoln, NE 68588-0327 new panorama of facts, impressions, and thought- provoking interpretations to their limited vision of the The past fifteen years have seen a plethora of courses, past. And, sad to say, it is still possible to complete a texts, and classroom materials developed to meet demands university education at many schools without ever having for teaching about the Viet Nam war in America’s schools. taken a U.S. history course, much less a course in Asian The popularity of this subject is evident to anyone who history that includes Indochina’s recent past. In short, has been at all active in secondary and post-secondary there is far too little history taught, and far too little Viet education. Fascination with the war has spawned a Nam in that history. thriving cottage industiy in developing new approaches To fully comprehend the lack of attention paid to the to presenting a complex and controversial topic. Most war and its impact on Indochinese and Americans, it is major textbook publishers have one or more books on the necessary to examine some of the books that elementary war that can serve as college texts.2 At the secondary level, and junior high students frequently use when they study too, the war has been written into history survey texts, the war and assess their value for both teachers and albeit in a manner that creates more frustration than students. While many of these texts are lacking in one understanding.3 As courses on the war have become way or another, this essay was not written merely to lay more widespread, teachers with practical experience in blame on authors and publishers but also to suggest developing and successfully teaching such courses in some avenues that might be taken to improve theeducation college and high school often appear at conferences, in our elementary and junior high school students receive particular the Popular Culture Association’s annual about the war. In the end, what we teach younger meeting, to discuss resources and teaching approaches. students about the Viet Nam war will determine to a large There is, in short, no dearth of material on America’s role degree how the next generation interprets this wrenching in the war for competent college and high school teachers experience. to fashion into successful courses. For those who have studied history at a more Such is not the case, however, for those who teach advanced level, the complexities of our nation’s past are younger students in elementary and junior high evident. When it comes to history, there is no such thing classrooms. For teachers in these classrooms, merely as a simple explanation or a reliable formula. “Facts," finding resources that are appropriate to the age and where such things are available, are subject to vastly abilities of their students is a challenge. To date, most different interpretations as to their validity and curriculum writers seem to have assumed that younger importance. History is, in short, the constant students either are not interested in the war or are not reassessment of a body of knowledge whose parameters intellectually able to deal with the complex issues that increase with each new study, each document discovered, the Viet Nam war raised. and each interpretation that provokes reasoned thought. As Bill McCloud found in 1987, Oklahoma junior Such comprehension, however, is not apparently high students were indeed fascinated by the Viet Nam encouraged in younger students. Their view of the Viet war, but they also received little exposure to the war in Nam war is shaped by books containing simplistic their social studies courses. As he noted, students "seem statements that do more to mislead students than to to be saying that they know the war is the skeleton in inform them.5 One of the most popular books on the war, America's family closet, and that they think they are now Edward F. Dolan's America After Vietnam: Legacies of old enough to be let in on the secret."'1 Although A Hated War, contains an unsophisticated explanation McCloud's diligence and unique approach to teaching for why our involvement in Indochina made this a “hated" about the war remedied that situation for Pryor, Oklahoma, war.6 According to the author, the war divided Americans students, there has not been a concerted effort to address into two camps: “On the one side were all the people who the war throughout America's elementary and junior supported the nation's participation in the fighting; on high schools. By the time students reach high school in the other were those who not only opposed the U.S. role some states, their American history requirement is in Vietnam but also hated the thought of any war."^ As completed. If they are enrolled in a U.S. history survey most adult readers are aware, choices made to support or course, time constraints, teachers’ interests, and political oppose the war were far more complex and sophisticated considerations sometimes relegate Viet Nam to a day or than Dolan simplistically portrays. His judgment that the two at the end of the year. war be "dumbed down" into such black and white terms Many high school students, though, do not even is reminiscent of the good/bad characterizations that review their sketchy knowledge of our nation's histoiy children are exposed to in Saturday morning television acquired in elementary and junior high school. The cartoons. He ignores the numerous public opinion surveys

1 M S u m m e r -FaII, 1992 ViET Nam G eneration Volume 4 NuivibcR 5-4 as well as less rigorous empirical evidence that suggests opposition during the 1940s and abortive land reform that Viet Nam was only one of a host of issues that divided efforts in the 1950s, both of which Ho Chi Minh himself Americans during the tumultuous 1960s. Adult students expressed regrets for in later years. of history find this simple dichotomy amusing if not If one side must be elevated, so the other must be insulting. For young people, however, who often tend to lowered, and children’s textbook authors do a marvelous view their world—and consequently their history-in more job of portraying the Americans as representatives of an black and white terms, such a division between support evil, immoral nation bent on conquering and colonizing a and opposition can quickly become transformed into poor, prostrate Third World nation. A representative good versus evil, an "us versus them" split that does little example of this is the treatment accorded the My Lai to educate students about the complexity of the Viet Nam massacre and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. war nor adequately prepares them to cope in a world In many textbooks My Lai is portrayed as a typical where there are few such finely drawn absolutes. occurrence, something that American soldiers did on a A second deficiency is evident in the approach that regular basis. Even Ha Noi's historians have largely writers take to explaining why the U.S. involved itself in abandoned such a radical and baseless position. As Indochina's affairs. While the debate over the nation's Sidney Lens described it, “War breeds atrocity, but involvement in Indochina shows no signs of abating seldom, if ever, before had there been an American among apologists, pundits, and historians, the issue perpetrated atrocity like the massacre." In the next seems to have been resolved by a number of textbook sentence Lens notes that incidents such as My Lai authors who write for ayounger audience. They credit the demonstrate the links between the war, violence, and a United States with the basest of intentions in their predilection toward “lyingand cheatingamongleadership" crusade to staunch the spread of communism in South in government and American business that produced a Viet Nam. This largely negative view of American climate after the war in which “yuppies' would count involvement usually takes the guise of portraying one success as a goal, with little or no concern for moral or side as lofty idealists and the other as men of evil ethical standards."10 Although the My Lai massacre should intentions, ruled by their immoral natures. Given the be studied and remembered for the horrible lessons it current interest in political correctness, it is to be expected leaches. Lens conveniently forgets other, far greater that these two divergent sides are usually taken by the atrocities perpetrated by both Americans in our numerous North Vietnamese (the good guys) and the Americans and wars and by the Vietnamese, Khmer, and Lao communists their South Vietnamese allies (the ones in the black hats.) against their countrymen. He also stretches the reader's The Vietnamese who was “first in the hearts of his imagination—and his authorial credibility—by linking countrymen," to borrow an appellation from American what went on in My Lai with what goes on in the history, is usually Ho Chi Minh. Whatever our views of boardroom. Granted that some older Americans may not “the George Washington of his country," they are likely to like yuppies, but insider trading scandals pale beside have been shaped by what we as adults know of the man's something like My Lai. To link the two in the same career. Ruthless dictator of kindly uncle? Choice of the paragraph is a travesty. Vietnamese people or tool of Moscow who rose to power Likewise, Henry Kissinger is usually not given a in a vacuum of opportunity? Our adult knowledge of sympathetic portrayal in textbooks designed for history allows us to base our judgment of this controversial elementary and junior high readers. Many older readers man on informed opinion, and to assess Ho Chi Minh in have their own beliefs about the erstwhile and ubiquitous more sophisticated terms. secretary, but whatever one’s politics we must admit that This luxury is not afforded younger students. To few humans are comprised completely of evil or, as the them, Ho Chi Minh is variously described in American nursery rhyme goes, sugar and spice and everything nice. children's books as “the greatest Vietnamese leader of t he That basic fact of human nature apparently escaped twentieth century," or "Vietnam's most revered hero."8 some textbook writers. If Ho Chi Minh is the mythical Likened toGeorge Washington, an interesting comparison hero, Kissinger is the representation of evil incarnate, the since Ho, like George, has been raised to a mythic status man who. Lens argues, "abandoned his beliefs, allowing that would probably surprise and perhaps dismay both. hundreds of thousands of Americans, Vietnamese, Ho Chi Minh is popularly acclaimed as the one Vietnamese Cambodians, Laotians, and others to be maimed and that all sides, communist and noncommunist, north and killed needlessly so that so-called great power could save south, rallied around as their leader. In fact, like George face.”11 Interestingly enough, Lens, Dorothy and Thomas Washington. Ho has had large portions of his resume Hoobler, and other writers who are quick to condemn rewritten to reflect the mythic status he has achieved. American officials for lack of foresight are silent on the Like Washington, who likely told a lie now and then and genocide perpetrated on Cambodians by the Khmer probably didn't chop down a cherry tree, Ho's failings Rouge. As one junior high school student asked me after have been glossed over by textbook writers anxious to a class presentation several months ago, was Kissinger preserve a saintly image of Viet Nam's national leader. responsible for Pol Pot's excesses, too? I shudder to think Sidney Lens, writer of a popular young reader's book on that the leap of logic made by this lone, dazed student is the war, describes a man unknown to many Vietnamese being made in other classrooms across the country. No in 1945 as “the Communist fighter who had gained great matter what we as adult s may feel about the personalities prestige because of his role in the struggle for independence who populated the war's landscape, we as teachers owe during the 1930s.”9 Conspicuously absent from most it to our students to present them with facts and train accounts of Ho's life are his ruthless suppression of them to interpret facts. To do anything less, to rely S u m m e r -F ail, 1992 ViET Na m G eneration VolUME 4 NuMbER 5-4

instead on timeworn characterizations and outdated treatment of the war for this age group is Margot C.J. rhetorical shrieking, does a disservice to students’ M abie’s Vietnam There and Here. Despite its formative intellects and our skills as professional evenhandedness, it has some deficiencies. Like her fellow educators. authors, Mabie is not a specialist, something quite evident Finally, one of the most disappointing aspects of from her willingness to rely upon such dichotomies as texts for younger students in the chauvinism inherent in “hawks" and “doves" to explain the contrasting positions their content. Americans’ continued cultural isolationism many Americans took regarding the war. when it comes to any sort of comprehensive understanding As should by now be evident, although there are of other nations’ history, religions, and literature is glimmers of hope in several current textbooks, none in evident in many areas of the school curriculum, but it is and of itself is competent to meet the task of educating the especially distressing with the subject of the Viet Nam next generation about the war in Indochina. Although war is presented. The war may have been a clash of many useful texts exist for high school and college ideologies and a contest of national wills, but it was also students, there is a glaring gap when it comes to similarly one of the most striking examples of the violent and sound books for younger students. There is also a need unsuccessful intermingling of two very dissimilar cultures. for either a single text or a series of volumes written for The Vietnamese were not “small Americans," and our this age group that address the Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, lack of understanding, during the 1960s and today, of and Hmong cultures. In this regard we are far behind Vietnamese culture is perpetuated in the textbooks we Australia, the location of another large refugee population. are foisting off on unsuspecting children. In many Phillip Institute of Technology and Vietnamese Language instances, Viet Nam is conspicuously absent from the and Culture Publications in Victoria, Australia, have Viet Nam war. Sidney Lens, for example, deals with Viet issued a multivolume set ofVietnamese folk tales, legends, Nam’s history from its origins to the 1920s in three and stories rendered both in English and Vietnamese and sentences; the period from the 1920s to 1964 receives in bilingual editions.13 Although they cannot replace a only ten pages. Needless to say readers should have a bit textbook, they can, when used by the imaginative more background on Viet Nam’s rich and complicated instructor, serve as a way to introduce students to some past to place America’s intervention in its proper of the basic elements of Vietnamese and Indochinese perspective. Edward Dolan, while he does a masterful job culture while also introducing a needed cultural element of explaining the legacies of the war for Americans, notes into the course. Such an approach also helps students to that the five legacies he chooses “have been bequeathed realize that cultures other than their own can produce especially to the United States. Others of a quite different great art and literature and a history that merits study. sort have been left to Vietnam." He does not. however, Finally, there is also an enormous need for videos and detail or explain what the war's legacies were for the educational documentaries appropriate to this age group. Vietnamese, nor does he explain that some of America's Many high school and college instructors arc familiar troubles in Indochina were the result of cultural ignorance. with the Vietnam: A History (PBS) and Ten Thousand All of the major texts are remarkably silent concerning Day War series. We are also aware, though, that the another of the war’s legacies: the Cambodian genocide. content and language used in these productions makes For the Indochinese, it seems, and for young American them largely unsuitable for young students. I am not students, the war ended in April 1975. When the suggesting that Walt Disney do a Viet Nam war film, but Americans went home, so it seems, peace came to certainly there are filmmakers who could produce a Indochina. Have we, as our textbook writers suggest, so competent script and engaging scenes to portray the war quickly forgotten one of this century's greatest tragedies? for young viewers. It does little good to criticize what is currently There are numerous other ways that we might available unless one also suggests possible ways to improve the education that U.S. students receive about improve what these captive consumers learn in their the Viet Nam war. New texts and appropriate movies are elementary andjuniorhigh school classrooms about U.S. only part of the problem, however. We also need a new involvement in Indochina. Although there are few standout approach, a new outlook that allows young students to be sources and there is much to bemoan regarding major treated like their older peers. They, like their high school deficiencies in both content and approach, some contain and college counterparts, should be presented with all useful material.12 Edward Dolan's America After sides of the war and at the same time be given the critical Vietnam does a veiy competent and sensitive job with the thinking and analytic skills appropriate to their age war’s American legacies: troubled veterans, Agent Orange, group so that they may make informed judgments about the MLA/POW issue, and refugee resettlement. Dolan, the war. This is particularly important for this generation. however, does not focus on the waritself, nordoeshedeal We as teachers have a marvelous but frightening task with Viet Nam itself as a cultural and geographical entity. here. This will be the first generation raised in a world no Dorothy andThomas Hoobler's Vietnam: Why We Fought longer beset by the Cold War. We face the challenge in this contains superb illustrations and does attempt to leave new era of peace to create a curriculum that can both students with a basic understanding of Vietnamese remind students who will grow up in more peaceful times history. It does not, however, contain much information what war is about and the costs attached to it and also about Indochina's trials and tribulations after April 1975. recreate for them the climate that existed during the As in so many instances, the authors’ interest and divisive war in Southeast Asia which shaped their parents' historical coverage seem to drop off after 1973 when most generation. I’d say we have our work cut out for us. U.S. troops were gone. The only competent general

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Notes Selected Bibliography 1 This essay is a revised version of a paper presented at the American/Popular Culture Conference, Louisville, KY, March 1992. The author appreciates comments by Elizabeth Kahn, Ashabranner, Brent, Always to Remember: The Story Kali Tal, and Dan Duffy and Joe Dunn's suggestions about of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (New York: Putnam additional sources that aided in revising this essay. Publishing) nd. 2 George Herring, Am erica's Longest W ar: The United States Boyd, Candy Dawson, Charlie Pippin (New York: and Vietnam, 1950-1975, 2nd edition (New York: Alfred Knopf, Macmillan) 1987. 1986), deals with the period of American involvement. George D. Dolan, Edward F., America After Vietnam: Legacies of Moss, Vietnam: An American Ordeal (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: A Hated War (New York: Franklin Watts) 1989. Prentice-Hall, 1990) is one of the better new texts for college-level courses; it is written from a balanced perspective and attempts Edwards, Richard, Vietnam War, Reading Level 8, to treat the war as an American and Vietnamese experience, Flashpoints Series, Set 1 (Vero Beach, FL: Rourke Corp.) though it treats the whole ofViet Nam's history up to the 1930s nd. in only fifteen pages. Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars, Garland, Sherry, Vietnam: Rebuilding a Nation, 1 9 4 5 -1 9 9 0 (New York: HarpcrCollins, 1991) and James S. Discovering Our Heritage Series (New York: Macmillan’s Olson and Randy Roberts, Where the Domino Fell: America Child Group) 1990. and Vietnam, 1945-1990 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991) Green, Carl R., and William R. Sanford, The Vietnam War are two recent texts that focus on the as well Soldier at Con Thien, The Soldier Series (Mankato, MN: as the Second Indochina War and America's involvement. Thomas Whittemorc’s The Vietnam War: A Text for Students Capstone Press) 1991. (Cambridge, MA: Cambridgcport Press, 1988) is directed toward Griffiths, John, The Last Day in Saigon, A Day That the secondary school audience. More ambitious and challenging Made History Series (North Pomfret, VT: Trafalgar Square) are Robert McMahon's Major Problems in the History of the 1987. Vietnam War (Lexington, MA: DC Heath and Co., 1990) and Hauptly, Denis J., In Vietnam (New York: Macmillan's Thomas D. Boettcher's Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow Child Group) 1985. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1985). Both find ready audiences among Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler, Vietnam: Why students for their stimulating writing and comprehensive coverage. Perhaps the best short treatment for college-level We Fought: An Illustrated History (New York: Alfred A. readers is Vietnam: Nation in Revolution (Boulder: Westview Knopfi 1990. Press, 1983), written by Viet Nam specialist William Duiker. This Huynh Quang Nhuong, The Land I Lost (New York: Harper is one of the few texts that treats the history and culture of Collins Children’s Books) 1986. Indochina in ore than a cursory fashion. Lawson, Don, The United States in the Vietnam War 3 For a brief, provocative discussion of some o f these books' (Young People's History of America's Wars Series (New failings, see David M. Berman, "In Cold Blood: Vietnam in York: Harper Collins Children's Books) 1981. Textbooks," Viet Nam Generation 1:1 (Winter 1989): 61-80. ------, An Album of the Vietnam War, Picture 4 Bill McCloud, W hat Should W e Tell Our Children About Album Series (New York: Franklin Watts) 1986. V i e t n a m ? (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press) 1989: xiv-xvi. Lens, Sidney, Vietnam: A War on Two Fronts (New York: 5 A good example of this tendency is the well-written but Lodestar/Dutton) 1990. extremely misleading Charlie Pippin by Candy Boyd Dawson Mabie, Margot C.J., Vietnam There and Here ( New York: (New York: Macmillan) 1987. Like many children's books the Henry Hold) 1985. story has a happy ending, but as an explanation of the war itself Nurland, Patricia, Vietnam. Children of the World Series the book fails abysmally. (Milwaukee: Gareth Stevens) 1991. 6 An admittedly unscientific survey of 37 elementary and junior Tran Khanh Thuyet, The Little Weaver of Thai-Yen high school classrooms and libraries found Dolan's book in 23 schools. Village (San Francisco: Children's Book Press) 1987. 7 Edward F. Dolan, America After Vietnam: Legacies of a ------, Children ofViet-Nam (Washington, DC: H a t e d W a r (‘ New York: Franklin Watts) 1989): 13, 21. Asia Resource Center) 1973. 8 Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, Vietnam: W hy We Fought: An Warren. James A., Portrait of a Tragedy: America &t Illustrated History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf) 1990: 20: and, the Vietnam War (New York: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard) Margot C.J. Mabie, Vietnam There and Here (New York: Henry 1987. Holt & Company) 1985. Wills, Charles, The Tet Offensive, Turning Points in 9 Sidney Lens, Vietnam: A War on Two Fronts (New York: American History Series (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Silver Dutton) 1990: 6. Burdelt Press) 1989. 10 Ibid.: 102. Wright. David K., Vietnam, Enchantment of the World " Ibid.: 103. 12 A list o f popular Viet Nam war books written for elementary Series (Chicago: Children’s Press) 1989. and junior high age students is contained at the end of this ------, The Story o f the Vietnam Veterans essay. Memorial, Cornerstones of Freedom Series (Chicago: 13 Among the most accessible and interesting of these volumes Children's Press) 1989. are My Village, by I-ang Toi, Five Vietnamese Folk Tales, ------, War in Vietnam. 4 volumes (Chicago: Selected Vietnamese Folk Tales, Old Storiesfrom Vietnam, Children's Press) 1989. and Folk Tales from Indochina, by Tran My-Van. All volumes arc superbly illustrated, extremely readable, and present a side of Indochinese culture rarely included in American volumes on the war.

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especially relevant to Viet Nam Generation readers, Book R eviews opening with a short tribute to the antiwar work of Leonard Boudin, who represented the soldiers at Fort Dan Scripture is Viet Nam Genera tion Book Review Ed ilor. Jackson, near the “good army town" of Columbia, South Please send him queries about reviews at College Eight, Carolina. Smith describes in detail the obstacles to University o f California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, FAX 408- obtaining “military justice," from the conditions o f the 459-3518, phone 408-459-4790, phone message 408- to the hostile attitude of military lawyers toward 459-3518, or by E-mail on Bit Net at [email protected]. the civilian attorneys who saw their mission as protecting the right of citizen soldiers to speak their minds. His Notebook of a Sixties Lawyer, An Unrepentant Memoir description of this peculiar brand of justice is especially and Selected Writings, by Michael Steven Smith revealing: “Those forced to endure the idiocy of Army life Smyrna Press, Brooklyn, New York, 1992, $24.95, $9.95. are permitted no bail, no indictment by grand jury, no impartial judge, no jury of their peers, no due process— Reviewed by Barbara Tischler, Columbia University all supposedly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Moreover, some military laws are so vague (what does ‘conduct Do we really need more books about the 1960s? Haven't unbecoming an officer and a gentleman' mean?) as to be all the majorvoices, from TIME magazine to the academic Kafkaesque" (79). experts and Hollywood film makers, spoken the definitive In winning the right of expression for protesting GIs “word" on this important period in our history? If we at Fort Jackson, Smith sees a victory for all of those believe the gospel of film dramatizations and TV soldiers who, “standing firm on their democratic rights, documentaries, we need see no more. But if the intellectual were able to draw wide support both within and outside and moral upheavals of the 1960s taught us anything, it the Army. Uniting on opposition to the war made it was to question eternal truths and find room in our possible to weld both black and white GIs together in an canons for voices that have not yet had their say. effective organization... .The Army, in its heavy-handed The appearance of Michael Steven Smith's Notebook attempt to liquidate organized anti-war sentiment, did of a Sixties Lawyer, An Unrepentant Memoir and not calculate that the effort would rebound, as it did, and Selected Writings is timely. We have seen the first thrust anti-war sentiment up to a new level. Herein lies round of "big books by big men about big movements," perhaps the biggest contribution the Fort Jackson 8 and it’s clearly time to look at the 1960s from a more local, made: drawing attention to the sentiment existing and community, and grassroots perspective. Smith writes growing inside of the Army, they helped re-orient the from his personal point of view as a 1960s activist, an antiwar movement toward recognizing the potential of a attorney in Detroit and later New York who devoted his new key component: the new breed of soldier, the antiwar energies to draft counseling and providing legal help to GI" (76). many who protested injustice. Smith was a member of Smith discusses the valuable work of opposition the Socialist Workers Party who never lost his commitment groups inside the military, such as GIs United Against the to the ideals and goals of the Party, in spite of his War in Viet Nam, along with the organizing work on and expulsion. Smyrna Press publisher Dan Georgakas writes around military bases of the Socialist Workers Party and in the Introduction that, “Without masking any of his other groups. The GI antiwar newspapers, coffee houses, frustrations and disappointments. Smith never turns rap sessions, and political organizing made it possible for sour. He believes the old fights were worth undertaking an individual GI to take a stand and hope to find others and that future struggles are inevitable. Indeed, his to support and stand with him or her. These organizations objective in publishing this material is less to offer data and vehicles for protest and expression battled the to historians of the past than to speak directly to activists alienation of the individual citizen soldier as much as of the future" (xvii). they helped GIs to struggle against the overwhelming war Smith recounts his own history in a disarmingly itself. honest and straightforward style. No young revolutionary, No small outcome of the victory at Fort Jackson was he joined ROTC (rhymes with "hotsy" or "tolsy") in the the issuance of Guidance on Dissent, an Army directive early 1960s at the University of Wisconsin because his that counseled base commanders to adopt a more relaxed father advised him that, as an officer, at least he would position on GI protest and dissent. In spite of the efforts have a bed. If he did not enter this military organization of the Pentagon to crush the GI antiwar movement, its as an antimilitarist. Smith emerged from it firmly strength and numbers grew until there could be no more committed to avoiding personal contact with military life. war on traditional terms. As things turned out, he helped many others to avoid Sections of Notebook o f a Sixties Lawyer reveal a such contact and helped to safeguard the rights of many lot about political life in and near the Socialist Workers men and women in uniform as well. Some of his stories Party. For readers not familiar with the efforts of of military mishaps are hilarious, and readers will smile government to suppress dissenting political groups, along with Smith as he reveals that he was removed from Smith’s discussions of wiretaps, surveillance, and the his campus branch of RO'fC for referring to the entire use of informants are revealing. He reminds us that the operation as “Mickey Mouse." days of local red squads and a national network o f FBI Smith offers numerous pieces reprinted from diverse counterintelligence agents are not long past and may not sources. The section on "Rights of Citizen Soldiers" is have faded from our current political scene at all.

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Notebook of a Sixties Lawyer is about freedom and friend, than with his wife, and eventually is responsible self-expression. Smith was eventually expelled from the for a devastating accident to one of the children. Socialist Workers Party. He has found an eloquent voice Like a Viet Nam veteran in a rap group. 's in this collection, retaining his passion for justice and therapy is talk; his first talk-partner is Ned’s mother, who willingness to fight for a just cause. In discussing the forces him to tell her everything. After that he keeps importance of the story of an active but unsung 1960s talking, but the talk is never therapeutic enough to personality, Alan Wald notes in a thoughtful Afterward exorcise his demons. that Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All is an example of the way that we now tend to look at our own Smith’s memoir shows that his is the story not Civil War refracted back through our more recent war. merely of a person radicalized by an organization, Ken Bums' I V series had touches of that, and Dances but of a person radicalized by the injustices of a With Wolves has a lot of it. Like Dances, Confederate society. His subsequent decision to join a socialist Widow has a totally ahistorical scene about surgeons organization was seen as a means of acting upon operating to save a soldier's leg, rather than amputating and enriching existingvalues and commitments. it. Lucy says some very contemporary-sounding things ... The moment ofTrotskyism's greatest influence about Cap’s war experience: “He’d walked the whole way of the 1960s has now entered history as part of home from war. When oh when would he finally get here?" the larger legacy of the left out of which new “Kept gallivanting off, jawing with other vets about the generations of socialist activists, along with happy bloody olden times. I felt every inch the vet of the surviving veterans of the past, will have to create vet." And later, her supposed listener, the person taping new instruments for social transformation under her oral history, is “a veteran of the veteran's veteran." continually changing conditions (229) Gurganus is a Navy veteran, who served on an aircraft carrier during the Viet Nam war. His novel is a Lawyers like Mike Smith remind us that we will have to sort of uncomfortable balance between being an oblique struggle to maintain our right to self-expression but that Viet Nam War novel, and an imaginative tour through his it is a right worth protecting. ancestral history. As he tells in an essay in The Iowa Review, he first conceived of the book when he was in the Navy, killing time in a library in San Diego, and found in Allan Gurganus, Oldest Living Confederate Widow old census records that his Southern family had owned Tells All slaves in the eighteenth century. John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany Confederate Widow is an interesting book in many ways, but it has problems, not the least of which is that, Reviewed by Renny Christopher, Literature Board, at 718 pages, it is too long by about half. Lucy is supposed University o f California at Santa Cruz to be a garrulous old woman, but the length of the book is wearing on even a dedicated reader. It is also marked Allan Gurganus’ Oldest Living Confederate Widow by annoying historical inaccuracies: Morgan horsesaren't Tells All (1989) is a book about a different war, the U.S. 5-gaited, as Gurganus makes them, and he introduces Civil War, and John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany Quarter horses before the breed was developed. Much is a book set almost entirely in New Hampshire, but both worse, he has slave ships operating long after the outlawing of them are infused by the spirit of America’s war in Viet of the slave trade in 1809. Nam. But perhaps the worst weaknesses of the book lie in Gurganus' novel purports to be an oral history of Gurganus' construction of race and gender. One of the Lucy Marsden, a woman 99 years old in 1984, and, as the major characters is Castalia, one of the Marsden family’s title proclaims, the oldest Confederate widow. Her former slaves. Gurganus imagines her story in fanciful husband, “Captain" Marsden (he was really a leenaged and mythic ways, but she never really feels believable— private, but time and Southern myth promoted him to not that she's a stereotype; rather, Gurganus goes so far Captain as he got older) fought for the Confederacy, lost to keep her from being one that he seems to create her out his closest friend in a stupid incident with a sniper, of whole cloth. And Lucy is not believable as a woman of witnessed up close the death of a young Union soldier he her generation. She’s always ambivalent about sex with had shot, and eventually walked home to find his family's Cap, which is believable, but she talks about it much too plantation burned to the ground and his mother severely explicitly, as she does about homoerotic interludes with burned in that fire, and abandoned by the ex-slaves. her childhood best friend and with Castalia. The problem “Cap" marries Lucy when he is 50 and she is 17. is not that the events wouldn't happen, but rather that it's The story of their marriage is the story of a family unbelievable that a Southern woman bom in 1885 would suffering from Marsden’s untreated PTSD. The novel talk about them so freely. Even one as garrulous as Lucy. seems to be informed by a very contemporary sense of John Irving's novel is also long, 543 pages, perhaps what it’s like to be a veteran's wife—Gurganus might have loo long for some readers, but 1 have always been an done his research by reading Patience Mason and admirer of Irving's, so I'm willing to follow him for that Aphrodite Matsakis. Cap stockpiles guns under their bed length, and 1 especially love this novel. While it is only (all possible symbolism intended), drinks, neglects and obliquely “about" the war, nonetheless I find it one of the abuses his wife and family, endlessly retells his war most moving war novels I've read. stories, is much more in love with Ned, his war-dead

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It is narrated by John Wheelwright, descendant of a patrician family in the small New Hampshire town of Gravesend (a stand-in for Exeter). John’s best friend was James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain (New York: Pocket Owen Meany, son of the family that ran a local, Books) 1987, 281 pages, $4.95; Heaven’s Prisoners unsuccessful, granite quariy. Owen's main peculiarities (New York: Pocket) 1988, 274 pages, $4.95; Black are his voice—a “permanent scream"—and his sense of Cherry Blues (New York: Avon) 1989, 326 pages, $4.95: destiny. As a child he has a vision of his own gravestone, A Morning for Flamingos (New York: Avon) 1990, 319 including the date of his death. Owen is a martyr; the text pages. $4.95. repeatedly sets him up as a Christ figure. Charles Durden, The Fifth Law of Hawkins (New York: The narrative moves between John's reminiscences TOR) 1990, 538 pages, $4.99.. of his childhood and youth with Owen, and his current Gustav Hasford, A Gypsy Good Time (New York: life in Canada, where he has gone, not as a draft dodger, Washington Square Press) 1992, 177 pages, $8.00. but to renounce his American citizenship out of protest. Sharyn McCrumb, If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O In the narrative present, in the scenes in Canada, it (New York: Ballantine) 1990, 263 pages, $4.99. becomes clear that he is a maladjusted man, suffering Carsten Stroud, Sniper's Moon (New York: Bantam) from some sort of PTSD. although he is not a veteran 199,;415 pages, $5.99. himself. The scenes set in the narrative past drive toward revelation of the event that will ultimately explain both Reviewed by Kali Tal Owen's and John’s fates. The novel explores issues of class—the Wheelwright Two of my favorite writers of Viet Nam war literature family semi-adopts the working-class Owen and makes it recently published new novels: Gustav Hasford’s Gypsy possible for him, a brilliant student, to attend Gravesend Good Time came out this year, and Charles Durden’s Academy, where, of course, he gets into trouble. And it is The Fifth Law o f Hawkins was published in 1990 and Owen who ends up in the Army, John protected by his issued in paperback in 1991. Both Hasford and Durden deferments first as a college student, then a graduate were correspondents in Viet Nam. Hasford was a combat student. It also deals with issues of faith and unbelief, of correspondent who served with the First Marine Division war and absurdity. in 1968, and Durden was a freelancer in 1966-67. As usual with Irving, the novel contains some brilliant Durden's Viet Nam war novel was titled No Bugles moments of cultural observation. My favorite is the No Drums (New York: Avon) and appeared in 1976—a Madonna-like rock star whose videos always use news fairly early contribution to the genre. The first-person footage of the war in Viet Nam. narrative is dictated by Pvt. Jamie “Hawk" Hawkins, I do have two reservations about the novel, but both drafted into the Army and sent off with his unit to guard are closely connected to the ending, and I don't want to the “Song My Swine Project"—a pig farm outside Da give it away. One concerns the ultimate explanation for Nang. No Bugles is a revision of both the John Wayne Owen's voice, which is simply dumb and wrong; the other myth and Twain's Huck Finn. Self-conscious and darkly concerns a poor boy who is crazy and violent, and an humorous, Durden paints an absurd picture of the war, unfortunate stereotype. But those are my only foreshadowing Hawk's decision to walk out on the whole reservations. enterprise (light out for the territories) with an opening Although Owen's fate is directly connected with the salvo directed at Wayne himself. Told that he and his unit war, he never leaves the U.S. Usually I'm angered by are headed for Viet Nam, Hawk notes: “I also wondered, novels and films that make the war be about America vs. just for a moment, what would happen if we all went back itself, rather than about the war as fought in a country to bed. No way. We'd all seen too many John Wayne called Viet Nam, but this novel doesn’t purport to be movies. Jesus, what he coulda done for the anti-war about the war. rather, it is about America and Americans, movement if he’d spent only half his time hockin' up that and American involvement in the war. which is a different drawl to say fine things like 'Fuck you, Cap'n. If these subject. As such, it's a great book, and instead of telling little Jap bastards want this island so bad,they can have you any more about it, I recommend that you read it. it. I'm hitchin' me a ride back to the fleet.' With that he throws down his fiamelhrower'n wades into the surf. Fat chance." Hawk himself eventually does exactly what he wishes Wayne had done: “I told everybody the war was over, that I was goin' home. Nobody started arguin' with me till I got to Danang. The farther away I got from the fightin', the harder it was to make people believe the war was finished" (285). His friends dead and his life shattered. Hawk takes his discharge and tells the Army “to go fuck themselves, because about the only thing subject Hawkins had left was his unshakeable bad attitude." (287) Hasford's Short Timers, (New York: Bantam) published in 1979, shares many of No Bugles' features. Like Hawk, Hasford's first person narrator is also a man with a sense of humor; in fact, he is named for it—Joker.

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the Boy Ranger is noted by the narrator himself, when he Hasford's humor is perhaps even more macabre than asks a prostitute if he can take a picture of her back to his Durden's, and it incorporates similar images, reveling in friend and she asks Hawk if he is in love with the Boy the the contradiction between the mass market culture of Ranger. Hawkanswers. "Prob'ly. But that ain't acceptable" the U.S. and the reality oflife during wartime. Both use (167). In both books the body of the love object (which, in as their refrain advertising slogans, and it's hard to homoerotic attractions, is also the body of the sell) is imagine that Hasford was not speaking directly to Durden violently penetrated: the gunshot which explode's when he chose for his motto, the phrase Things go better Cowboy's head is graphically described, as is the shrapnel with Coke,"—doubtless an answer to Durden's slogan blast which severs the Boy Ranger’s head from his body, (quoted with permission of PepsiCo, Inc.), “You've Got a and the death of the loved one signals the spiritual death Lot to Live and Pepsi’s Got a Lot to Give." Both employ the of the protagonist. device of a “Joh n Wayne" character—the best friend of the Fifth Law and Gypsy Good Time feature narrator—who does not survive the war. In Hasford's protagonists who already (dis?)embody that state of case this is. literally, Cowboy, whose need to adhere to the death-in-life. Such protagonists haunt the genre of wartime “script" (“Marines never abandon their dead or wounded") is the cause of his death. Joker breaks this detective fiction, and it is no accident that both Durden and Hasford have chosen to adopt its conventions. For mythic cycle graphically—he puts a bullet through the detective novel is a novel of the man alone, quite Cowboy's head, putting him out of his misery as one frequently depending upon the death of the masculine would kill a beloved, but now rabid dog. For Durden, this character is T h e Boy Ranger." killed in a foolish heroic partner (as in The Maltese Falcon) for the development of the plot, just as it depends upon the body of the gesture which Hawk both understands and rejects, and which motivates his decision to walk out on the war feminine "other" to carry the story to its conclusion. Female characters appear to be as integral to detective altogether. I've always seen these two books as being closely fiction as they are incidental in war stories. As far as I can related, both in style and content. The author's new tell, most detective stories are inscribed on the female body, the “body in the bed." which is either sexualized or books, too, seem to run in parallel. Both are “detective" novels: Hasford's A Gypsy Good Time is the first-person slaughtered, or both. narrat ive of Dowdy Lewis. Jr.. hardboiled. gun - toting Vie t Now I am a voracious reader, and my reading list is Nam vet bounty hunter and book dealer (an occupation pretty eclectic, but I have never been able to develop any which may or may not inspire amusement among those kind of affection for detective stories. I have found them who remember Hasford's arrest for allegedly stealing a very male headspace, and not a comfortable place for approximately 10,000 library books from L.A. area me to hang out. (I realize that there is a large body of libraries) who gets mixed up with the usual leggy redhead detective fiction by women, including the Agatha Christie with a mysterious secret: Durden's Fifth Law of Hawkins novels which I read in my adolescence. I don't like that sees the return of narrator Jamie Hawkins, whose trip to stuff much either, but for a whole set of other reasons I’m the territories has apparently landed him in jail on a not going to go into here.) I consider this a shortcoming marijuana charge in Mexico. He is rescued by Juliet, a on my part, and not a problem with the genre, because 1 leggy strawberry blonde with a mysterious secret. Both figure I should be able to get my mind around anything. Hasford and Durden retain their apparently truly So I thought I'd take another stab at appreciating this unshakeable bad altitudes, even in novels written more literature by using the new books by two of my favorite than twenty years after their war, Durden going so far as authors as an entry point. So I went to the bookstore and to conclude his book with the revelation that the Fifth and rooted around and came up with an essentially random, Final Law of Hawkins is: “Fuck 'em if they can't take a but probably representative selection of detective novels joke." While Short Timers and No Bugles move their which feature Viet Nam veterans as major characters. In narrators from innocence to experience in a revision of addition to the Durden and Hasford books, I uncovered the tradition of the bildungsroman. Gypsy Good Time a whole series by James Lee Burke which features Viet and The Fifth Latuare curiously static. The protagonists Nam veteran Dave Robicheaux, detective turned PI, and are jaded and cynical and essentially hopeless at the is set in New Orleans and the surrounding territory: and beginning, and their disillusion is merely confirmed at Carsten Stroud’s Sniper's Moon, set in New York City, the end. When you’re right, you're right. and featuring several Viet Nam veteran characters, most In their earlier novels, women played very little part notable among them Detective Frank Keogh, whose skills in the plot, appearing as incidental and enabling as a sniper in (he war seem to have transferred with little characters, facilitators of the story. The focus was on the trouble to the streets of the city. I have also included in relationship between the protagonist and his “best friend." this discussion Sharyn McCrumb's best-seller. I f Ever I In both novels, the homoerotic nature of the relationship Return Pretty Peggy-O, which is interesting both is explictly defined. In Short Timers it is negatively because it is a detective story dealing with the Viet Nam defined by the text's constant homophobic references war, and because it is by a woman writer. and the fantasy that Cowboy and Joker spin out, in which I purchased four of the Burke books; 1 was able to Joker will fuck Cowboy's sister. (The fact that Cowboy make my way through the first two, and bogged down in tells Joker, right before his death, that he has no sister t he middle of the third. The first of them. The Neon Rain, underlines the erotic bond between the two men.) In begins over the body of a young white woman thrown Durden's book, the erotic attraction between Hawk and from a hotel room window. It continues over the body of a drowned black woman which Robicheaux fishes out of

141 S uiviivier-Fa U, 1992 ViET Na m G eneratio n V o lu M E 4 N U M b E R 5-4 the bayou. Robicheaux, a Cajun whose distinctive marking floated the bodies of other fatigue-clad men and consists of a white streak in his black hair, “like a skunk," whole families of civilians, their faces still filled finds himself the target of Columbian drug runners for with disbelief and the shock of an artillery burst, reasons which it will take the rest of the book for the and farther still to the mossy base of an offshore reader to uncover, and which, of course, are linked to the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, where my father bodies of the dead women. The live woman is a blue-eyed waited for me in his hardhat, coveralls, and blonde Robicheaux meets by accident, while he's engaged steeltipped drilling boots after having drowned in macho PI heroics. On his first date with her, the two of there twenty years ago (56). them are almost killed by the Bad Guys, sparking Robicheaux's first Viet Nam-related memory of slaughter, There’s no indication that Burke is himself a Viet Nam which will become a running theme throughout the book. war vet. Back cover notes say only that he grew up on the Robicheaux has a brother, too, whom he refers to as his Gulf Coast and that he teaches writing and literature at “father's misplaced seed." The brother, Jimmie, is a guy Wichita State. I get the feeling that Robicheaux's vet who walks on the dark side of the law and seems rather status was the result of Burke's assumption that he ham-handedly to represent the “other side" of Robicheaux. could use readers' stereotypes of veterans to flesh out his Jimmie is mixed up with the local “mob," who are, of character, and to provide an “explanation" for course, Italian, and through his naivete and stupidity, he Robicheaux’s attitude. (I come to this conclusion based winds up almost but not quitedead. Robicheaux also has on some real screamers in the text. For instance, a partner named Cletus, who turns out to be a crook, and Robicheaux hears the men who are coming to kill him and whom he sends packing by the end of the novel. The narrates,"... my heart sank with a terrible knowledge that sequels to The Neon Rain—Heaven's Prisoners, Black I had experienced only once before, and that was when I Cherry Blues, and A Morning for Flamingos— had heard the klatch of the mine under my foot in demonstrate that Robicheaux has been given all of these Vietnam" (125). There never was any mention of injury personal connections so that they can be severed, one by to Robicheaux’s legs—much less the traumatic one, as devices to further a plot which seems endlessly amputation that stepping on such a mine is certain to repetitive: just when things seem to be getting better, cause—and so this statement simply sounds silly.) they are bound to get worse. Married to the saintly blonde Carsten Stroud, author of Sniper's Moon, is also not he meets in The Neon Rain, Robicheaux acquires a explicitly named as a Viet Nam vet, though one would mysterious child as the result ofa fortuitous plane crash, assume that it would lend an air of authenticity, if he were creatingan instant nuclear family. The acquisition of the a vet, to announce it in this context. He has, however, kid, however, signals the imminent demise of the wife, clearly read Michael Herr's Dispatches, since he baldly who is murdered in what can only be described as a appropriates one of Herr's centerpieces: Phoenix-style assassination in the middle of the night. This is the event which triggers Robicheaux's inevitable There was an old line from the war. How can you fall off the wagon, the climb back onto which is the a shoot women and children? Easy, was the corollary to his newly restored faith that things are just answer. as bad as they seem. All of this takes place in picturesque You just don't lead them as much (241). New Orleans and its surroundings like some strange local color narrative, complete with sensuous descriptions of Amazing how this refrain, penned by a journalist, and beignets and crawfish tails. By the middle of the third later incorporated into the filmscript of Full Metal book in the series, I was so bored I didn't care how bad it Jacket (script by Michael Herr, based on the Hasford was for Robicheaux. Burke regularly receives rave reviews novel, The Short-Timers) has become “an old line from from just about everybody, including his peers, who in the war.” Stroud’s novel also begins over the body of a 1989 awarded him the Edgar for the best crime novel of woman, in this case Frank Keogh's mother, Madeleine, 1989. What did become clear to me was Burke's who is bizarrely electrocuted when she dives into her insistence that for Robicheaux, Viet Nam and the U.S. are swimming pool, naked, at night, as her husband stands exactly the same. Checkout this passage from The Neon by (impotently?) with an erection. Police sniper Keogh is Rain: haunted by his mother's death, which turns out, of course, to be linked to the later murder of his lover, Myra, Then Bobby Joe locked his powerful armsaround soon after he has sex with her and departs her apartment. my neck and took me over the rim again, his body The sheer perversity of Stroud’s connection between sex trembling rigidly with a cruel and murderous and violence is highlighted by both the senior Keogh's energy, and I knew that all my past fears of being seemingly coincidental erection at the moment of his shotgunned by a psychotic, of being shanked by wife's demise and the fact that Myra's murderer is an addict, of stepping on a Claymore mine in dressed in a rubber body suit which the murderer Vietnam, were just the foolish preoccupations of describes as a “total-body condom” (173) when he violently youth; that my real nemesis had always been a penetrates/stabs her as she stands naked before him. redneck lover who would hold me upside down His remark, "I kill myself. 1 really do,” displaces her as the against his chest while my soul slipped through victim in this scenario. (Cynthia Fuchs says this reminds a green, watery porcelain hole in the earth, down her of Holden Caulfield's refrain, “It kills me. It really through the depths of the Mekong River, where does.”) The Good Guys in Sniper's Moon are hardcore

142 S u m m e r -FaII, 1992 ViET Naim G eneration V oIum e 4 NuivibER 5-4 combat vets who still kill people for a living. The Bad Spencer stared at her. “But you didn't have to kill Guys are all psychiatrists and mental health workers him. You could have waited for help. He was a who seem to be trying to convince the vets that they suffer kid!" from PTSD (weakness), and need “help.” The psychiatrists “He was a vicious bastard, and a killer, and he are homosexuals and fools, who are duped by a psychotic broke into my house. Do you think a Tennessee killer who both poses as a Viet Nam combat veteran (he jury will convict me of anything for shooting him? was really a REMF) and as aveteran’s counselor. It’s hard Me—a poor helpless woman?" to imagine a more perfect example of male hysteria. “But it wasn’t self-defense,” he whispered. Since I'm not a regular reader of detective novels. I’ve “You murdered him." no idea if this is an extraordinarily twisted text, or just Her smile was bitter. “Prove it, Sheriff (256). police-business as usual, but the manner in which Stroud weaves the pop culture mythology ofa rehabilitated In a weird reversal, the peacenik folksinger becomes the Viet Nam veteran-hero into his story is truly striking. grunt executing prisoners, while Spencer looks on in Stroud's vet is completely recuperated, and not even a bit horror—like the appalled American public. But the of a victim. PTSD is dismissed as nonsense, a distraction message is very confused, because, as Peggy notes, she invented by non-vet Yuppies to take their minds off their won’t be prosecuted because she’s a woman. However, own Viet Guilt. In the end, the Real Men unite and pass she's obviously able to kill because she's a feminist. And judgement upon the psychotic who attempted to pass as of course there's now no hope of any romantic relationship one of them, murdering him as one might shoot a rabid between Peggy and Spencer. Spencer winds up alone dog. But even this rather outrageous gesture is rendered with LeDonne. confessing that his brother Cal had essentially uninteresting, since the final sentences of the committed atrocities in Viet Nam and had, in fact, mailed book focus not on the “necessity" that “good men" commit home a severed ear in his last letter. But never fear, crimes, but on the absolution of Keogh senior of guilt or healing waits around the corner as LeDonne and Spencer complicity in the death of his wife. set off together to visit the Viet Nam Memorial Wall in I wish I could say that it's only the guys who bore me Washington, DC. to tears, but Sharyn McCrumb’s If Ever I Return Pretty My strongest reaction to these books was impatience. Peggy-O was simply one of the most insipid volumes I've “So what?" 1 kept thinking. Despite the twists and turns suffered through in I don't remember how long. Spencer of plot, it seemed like nothing happened. I can understand Arrowood is a small town policeman and Peggy Muryan Durden's and Hasford's attraction to the genre—its static is a famous folksinger (beautiful, rich, “liberated” and nature underlines the state of being “frozen" in the antiwar) returning home to settle down for a while in his traumatic moment. What I can't understand is why small town. Spencer's brother Cal was killed in Vietnam people find these stories interesting reading. The repetitive in 1966 (twenty years before the story takes place), and masculine discovery of “self over the dead bodies of Peggy Muryan’s ex-boyfriend and ex-singing partner, female characters left me profoundly unmoved, and. in Travis, was also killed there. The plot revolves around a fact, became so predictable that I simply assumed that burgeoning love affair between Peggy and Spencer, and a every female who showed up was a socn-to-be-body, gradually revealed plot against Peggy carried out by some either in this book, or its sequel. The killers were mysterious person who may or may not be Travis returned invariably “psychotics" who “passed" for normal until from the dead. “Letters home” from Travis punctuate the their deep flaws were uncovered by the persistence and text, and his descriptions of the atrocities he committed intelligence of the detective. The detectives were invariably in Viet Nam are paralleled by similar attacks on Peggy. deeply ambivalent men who were never going to find Certainly the most attractive character in the novel is the peace. Such formulae indicate that these books are dead Travis, and McCrumb’s prose is liveliest when she fulfilling a fantasy, like romances, perhaps. But unlike is penning his letters. A subplot involves police officer romances they are not hopeful. Rather, they are and Viet Nam vet Joe LeDonne's relationship with feral rationalizations for the refusal to change, arguments for vet Roger Gabriel, who turns out not to be the killer— stasis. When I finished the last one. all I could think of male bonding seems to be the point here—and secretaiy were Walter Cronkite’s words: “Things are more like they Martha’s finally successful attempt to snag the elusive are now than they ever have been before." LeDonne for her own. Meanwhile, it seems the whole town is preparing for the twentieth reunion of the high school class to which all the major characters seemingly belonged. The villain turns out to be a psychotic high school student who accidentally found Travis' letters and decided to act out his fantasies about the war. The kid breaks into Peggy's house to rape and then murder her, but Peggy has a .45 and "captures" the kid. Spencer arrives to rescue her just in time to see Peggy blow (he kid away in cold blood:

14? Vietnam Generation Catalog

Fall, 1992

The Future o f the Past: Revisionism and Vietnam ($15) “In Cold Blood: The Vietnam War in Textbooks," “Two Quiet Americans: British Literature into American Propaganda," "Disputing the Wreckage: Ideological Struggle at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial," “The American Bombardment of Kampuchea, 1969-1973," " Redrawn," “Inflationary Impact of the Vietnam War," "A Hundred Happy Sparrows: An American Veteran Returns to Vietnam," “On the Cover of the Rolling Stone: Toward a Theory of Cultural Therapy."

A White M a n ’s W an Race Issues and Vietnam, Editor: William King ($15) "Contemporary Afro-American Studies and the Study of the Vietnam War," "Soldados Razos: Issues of Race in Vietnam War Drama," "Forgotten Warriors: American Indian Servicemen in Vietnam," “Project 100,000: The Great Society's Answer to Military Manpower Needs in Vietnam," "'Our Men in Vietnam': Black Media as a Source of the Afro-American Experience in Southeast Asia," "Alamo Bay and the Cook Syndrome," “The Silent Majority Baby Boomers: Class of 1966 in a South Jersey Town," “I, Too, Sing America: Vietnam as Metaphor in Coming Home," “Perceptions of Race and Class Among Chicano Vietnam Veterans," “Bloods Revisited."

Gender and the W an Men, Women and Vietnam, Editor, Jacqueline Lawson ($19) "Sexist Subscript in Vietnam Narratives," “‘Going Toward War' in the Writings of Maxine Hong Kingston," “Interviews with Two Vietnam Veterans: Welcome Home,” “Women for Peace or Women's Liberation? Signposts from the Feminist Archives," “TheTelevision War: Treatment of Gender and the Vietnam Experience in Network Television Drama in the 1988-89 Season," “Visions of Vietnam in Women's Short Fiction," “'I Never Really Became a Woman Veteran Until... 1 Saw the Wall': A Review of Oral Histories and Personal Narratives by Women Veterans of the War," "Nuclear Discourse and Its Discontents, or, Apocalypse Now or Never," "Moon Landing: A Memory," "As Soldier I-ads March By," “Paramilitary Fantasy Culture and the Cosmogonic Mythology of Primeval Chaos and Order," “Point Blank: Shooting Vietnamese Women," "Violence, Death and Masculinity," Th e Day They Buried Traditional Womanhood': Women and the Politics o f Peace Protest," T akin g in the Images: A Record in Graphics of the Vietnam Era Soil for Feminism," “Happiness is a Warm Gun: Militarized Mourning and Ceremonial Vengeance," "Making Sense of Vietnam and Telling the Real Story: Military Women in The Combat Zone." "Back Against the Wall: Anti-Feminist Backlash in Vietnam War Literature," "Feminist Criticism and the Literature of the Vietnam Combat Veteran."

GIResistance- Soldiers arid Veterans Against the War, Editor, Harry W. Haines ($15) "Black GI Resistance During the Vietnam War," "GI and Veterans Movement Against the Vietnam War, 1965-1975: A Selected Bibliography," "Stealing Hubcaps," “Hegemony and the GI Resistance," “The War Within A War: Dissent in the Vietnam-Era Military," T h e 27," “Lieutenant Hatfield," "A Matter of Conscience: Resistance Within the U.S. Military During the Vietnam War," “Breaking Ranks: GI Antiwar Newspapers and the Culture o f Protest."

Kent and Jackson State- 1970-1990, Editor, Susie Erenrich ($15) “Statement by the Governor, the Generals, the Command Officers, and the Guardsmen," “Statement by the Parents: January 4, 1979," T h e Sixties, Kent State, and Historical Memory," "Beggar's Bullets: Captain Trips Bums Clevo or What a Short Dull Trip It Was," T h e May 4 Memorial at Kent State University: Legitimate Tribute or Monument to Insensitivity?" “Four Students: Address Delivered at Kent State, May 4, 1974," “A 1990 Postscript," "Simple Themes and Complex Reality in the Spring o f 1970," “Address Delivered at Kent State, May 4, 1984," "Address Delivered at Kent State, May 4, 1987," “From Kent State to Tiananmen Square: Some Personal Reflections," "ATribute to Arthur Krause: Delivered at Kent State. May 4, 1989," “Anniversary: May 4, 1988," "Brothers and Sisters on the Land: Tent City, 1977," "Kent State: What You Still Don't Know," “Recalling the Kent State Killings," “Twenty Years Later," “On the Trouble at Kent State," "'Mediated Reality' of Kent State: The Friction Between Fact and Fiction," "The Killings at Jackson State University, May, 1970," “Our Beloved Sandy is Gone Forever," "Lynch Street: The May, 1970, Slayings at Jackson State University," "Save the Pooch," “Mississippi Killing Zone: An Eyewitness Account of the Events Surrounding the Murders by the Mississippi Highway Patrol at Jackson State University," T h e Big Chill: The Stifling Effect of the Official Response to the Kent State Killings," “May 15, 1970: The Miracle at Jackson State University."

Southeast Asian American Communities ($12) “Vietnam, My Country, "“Southeast Asian Parent Empowerment: The Challenge ofChanging Demographics in Lowell, Massachusetts," "Cambodians in the Bronx and Amherst: A Photographic Essay," "Between Cultures: Oral History of HmongTeenagers in Minneapolis," “Reducing Teenage Childbearing in the Hmong Community: First Year Results," T h e Vietnamese Amerasian Resettlement Experience: From Initial Application to First Six Months in the United States," Th e Education o f Hmong Women."

Just For Laughs: Poetry by W.D. Ehrhart ($10)

Swords into Ploughshares: A “Home Front” Anthology ($12) Fiction, poetry, and essays by Toni Cade Bambara, Patti Davis, Karen Joy Fowler, Ruth Geller, Shirley Ann Grau, Sandra Gurvis, Mary Hazzard, Wayne Karlin, Maxine Kumin, James Kunen, Denise Izivertov, Susan Lowell, Alice Lynd, Marilyn M. McMahon, Jemela Mwclu, Leslie Silko, Marilyn Singer, Julia Thacker, Kate Wilhelm.

Australia ReSRi Representations curd Reinterpretations of Australia's War in Vietnam, Editors: Jeff Doyle & Jeffrey Grey ($12) T h e Australian Government & Involvement in the Vietnam War," "Vietnam as I Iistoiy: The Australian Case," "Policy Contradictions of the Australian Task Force," “Veterans in Australia," "Who Cares for the Caregiver: Australian Nurses," "Australian Governments' Responses to the Indochinese Refugee Problem," "The Funny Place': Australian Literature & the War in Vietnam," "Dismembering the Anzac Legend: Australian Popular Culture & the Vietnam War," “A Select Bibliography," "A Select Chronology".

Informed Dissent: Three Generals arid the Viet Na m War, Essays by Asad Ismi and Robert Buzzanco ($10)

The Land of a Million Elephants, a novel by Asa Baber ($16)

Interrogations: Poetry by Leroy Quintana ($10) S ixties Generations: From Montgomery to Viet Nam

A Conference of Scholars, Activists and Artists

March 4-G, 1393

George Mason University Fairfax, Virginia

C a l l f o r P a p e r s , P a n e l s , W o r k s h o p s , a n d P resentations

Sixties Generations is a multimedia, interdisciplinary conference. W e are looking for proposals for presentations, papers, panels, and workshops in the arts, the humanities, and the sciences. Our emphasis is on exploring the diversity and complexity of American and international cultures during the 1960s, in terms of their continuing influence on contemporary U.S. culture.

Please send 1-2 page proposals and abstracts to: Vietnam Generation 2921 Terrace Drive, Chevy Chase, MD 20815 (301) 608-0622; FAX (301) 608-0761.

Deadline for proposals is December 1, 1992.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

A l c a t r a z • A l g e r i a n R e v o l u t i o n • A l t a m o n t • A l t e r n a t i v e C u l t u r e • A m e r i c a n I n d i a n M o v e m e n t • A m e r ic a n

S e r v i c e m e n 's U n i o n • A n a r c h i s m • A n t i w a r M o v e m e n t • A r t i s t s a n d W r i t e r s o f t h e S i x t ie s • A t t i c a • B e r k e l e y F r e e

S p e e c h M o v e m e n t • B l a c k M u s l i m M o v e m e n t • B l a c k P a n t h e r P a r t y • B i a c k P o w e r • B i a c k W o m e n in t o e W o m e n ’s

M o v e m e n t • C a t h o l i c L e f t • C a t h o u c W orker • CCNV • C e s a r C i a v e z • C h e G u e v a r a • C h i c a g o D e m o c r a t i c

C o n v e n t i o n 1968 • C i v i l R i g h t s M o v e m e n t • COINTELPRO • C o m i n t e r n • C o m m i t t e e o f C o n c e r n e d A s i a n S c i i o i a r s

• C o m m u n e s • C ountercinema • C ounterculture in E u r o p e • C u b a n R e v o l u t i o n • D i g g e r s • D r u g C u l t u r e • DRUM

• E nvironmental M o v e m e n t • E xperimental T h e a t e r • F i d e l C a s t r o • F o l k M u s i c • F o r t H o o d 3 • Foot J a c k s o n 8

• F r e e S c h o o l s • G a y a n d L e s b i a n L i b e r a t i o n M o v e m e n t s • G I C offeehouses • G I M o v e m e n t • G u e r r i l i a T i ie a t e r

• G u l f o f T o n k i n I n c i d e n t • F I a i g h t A s h b u r y • H e l l s A n g l e s • I n v a s i o n o f C a m b o d i a • K e n t & J a c k s o n S t a t e • L a

R a z a • L a b o r & t o e A n t i w a r M o v e m e n t • L a b o r D e m o c r a c y M o v e m e n t • L i b e r a t i o n T h e o l o g y • L o n g B i n h J a i l U p r is in g

• LSD • M a l c o l m X • M a r c h o n W a s h i n g t o n • M a r t i n L u t h e r K i n g , J r . • M a y D a y D emonstrations • M is s is s ip p i

F r e e d o m D e m o c r a t i c P a r t y • M i d w e s t I n s t i t u t e • M o b e • M o r a t o r i u m • M y L a i M a s s a c r e • N e w L e f t • N ix o n C a m p a i g n

a N o n v i o l e n t A c t i o n • O b s c e n i t y T r ia d s • O l y m p i c s • P a n -A f r i c a n i s m • P a r i s '6 8 • P a t r ic e L u m u m b a • P e n t a g o n P a p e r s

• P oliticization o f S t r e e t G a n g s • P r a g u e '6 8 • P u e r t o R i c a n I ndependence M o v e m e n t • R a d ic a l S cience • R amparts

M ag azine • R edstockings • R o c k & R o l l • S a n F r a n c is c o M i m e T r o u p e • S o u t h e r n P o v e r t y L a w C e n t e r • Sour ie r n

S t u d e n t O r g a n i z i n g C o m m i t t e e • S t u d e n t M o v e m e n t • T e t O f f e n s i v e • T h e C h i c a g o 8 • T h i r d W o r l d L i b e r a t o n

M o v e m e n t s • T h i r d W o r l d N e w s r e e l & N e w Y o r k N e w s r e e l • U n d e r g r o u n d P r e s s • U r b a n I nsurrections • V e t o

f o r P e a c e • V i e t N a m W a r * V i e t n a m V e t e r a n s A g a i n s t t o e W a r • W a s h i n g t o n , DC in t o e 1960s • W a t e r g a t e * W in t e r

S o l d i e r I nvestigation • W o m e n S t o k e f o r P e y c e • W o o d s t o c k • W o u n d e d K n e e • YIPPIES • Y o u n g L o r ie s O rganization

Sponsored by the GMU American Studies, African-American Studies and Film Programs & Viet Nam Generation, Inc.